Flight From Furnace
by SethFurnace
Summary: My name is Seth. I was fourteen when I landed right in the middle of my own personal hell; the prison known as Furnace Penitentiary.
1. Chapter 1

I guess I should explain as to why or how I ended up here. Well that was simple, me and my closest friend, Trey, had to be the biggest idiots in the world. We had broken into a few stores, just to get some cash and some stuff from the stores, and then these guys in suits had caught us. Told us that they could turn us into the police, but that they had bigger plans. Better plans. They took us to this building were they had another one of our friends tied up at. One of them pulled out a gun, and shot him, and then he made Trey catch the gun. How pathetic of us to do that, and then most of all get caught. They told us to run, they wanted it to be a cat and mouse game. We fell for it way too easily. We split up after a while of running, figuring that it'd be better for us to split up. We made plans to meet up in a different state, as soon as we could get there. The first one there would wait around for the other, checking places every day to make sure that the guys in the suits weren't there.  
After a few days of running, I stopped and rented myself a room at a hotel for the night. I was tired, and even more so tired at sleeping at bus stations. When I got into the hotel room, I turned on the local news. On the news, I saw what I had wanted the least to see. Trey had been caught by the cops and was being sent to a prison called Furnace Prison for murder and breaking and entering. They were talking about how they knew he had a partner in the whole thing, and how now that they had caught him, they only needed to find the partner. I knew that Trey hadn't given me up, but that they had somehow figured out that I had been there too. I was being hunted more now than ever before. I cursed myself for being so stupid for actually thinking that maybe Trey and I could have gotten away. We were screwed from the moment that that murder happened. It was only a matter of time before we got caught. I stayed the night at that hotel and then watched the news in the morning again. The news was talking about how they had found out who the partner was in the murder. And then they said the name Seth Slade and showed a picture of me on the TV. I was in shock for a few minutes after they had given away my name and picture. I hurried to get out of the hotel, knowing that I wouldn't be able to show my face practically anywhere now. I had no plan now, no place to head to, no friend out there looking for me. I was completely alone.

So, you can probably add up the details and figure out that it didn't take that long for me to get caught. I was a nervous kid in a place where everyone in the country had probably already seen my picture and was looking for me. They wanted to find me worse than they wanted dinner probably. I was the most wanted person in America currently, I'd bet. The only teenager who was still able to hide from the cops and the swat teams looking for me. Sure there'd been close calls during the next few days where I'd almost been caught by cops, but I managed to get away for about a week.  
When I got caught, I was exhausted. At that point, I'm pretty sure I didn't even care anymore. I was sitting on the sidewalk, leaning back against a building, almost asleep, when the cops walked up. I didn't even have the energy to try to get up and run. I just sat there and raised my hands slightly. The cops recognized me instantly and arrested me. They transported me back to Tampa Florida, where the crime originally happened. I was in the local county jail for a few days while they questioned me. It seemed like every sentence out of my mouth was 'I didn't do it.' or 'We didn't kill Matt.' I wanted everyone to believe me, but no one did. No one even wanted to try to think about believing me. They didn't care. I was just another lost and troubled kid to them all. Trey and I had been framed and no one wanted to listen. Next came the trial. The trial was something I was practically charged guilty before it even started. After the trial ended and the jury went away to decide my fate. I sat there for an hour, waiting for the jury to come back. When they came back, my fate was already decided. Guilty. Life in Furnace Prison. May I rot in hell. All things the judge told me in his closing speech. I was dragged out of the court by the cops that were there. I was heading to Furnace Prison. The maximum security prison for teenagers. I was heading to where my closest friend now was. We were going to be in there for life. We'd die in there. We'd have no real chance at a life. All because of a stupid idea. -  
Heading to Furnace that day was probably one of the worst days in my life. I was on a bus with four other kids. None of which I knew. I was scared of what laid ahead. Furnace, after all, was an underground prison. All of the cells and everything was a mile underground. I looked over at a kid who was in the seat directly across the bus from me. He glanced at me before looking back at the back of the seat in front of him. He had brown hair, what I can only explain as grey eyes, and looked pretty average. I turned my attention back to the floor. I could hear the police guards on the bus snickering about us all looking scared. I hated them instantly, and I knew I'd hate the guards at Furnace even more than these guards.  
When we got to Furnace, we were ushered off of the bus. We stood out in the rain for a few minutes, before two guards from the prison walked outside. They signed papers to get us and then practically shoved us all inside the barb wire fencing. "Take a good look outside! Because this is the last time you'll see anything but cell bars and prison walls!" One of the guards said while laughing. His laugh was Sadistic, which just seemed to add to the whole sadistic factor of Furnace. The barb wire looked worse than any other prison's barb wire that I'd seen on TV, the building looked like some slaughter houses' building. The guards shoved us on inside the building, where we were met with even more guards looking at us like we were their next meal. The guards guided us to a hole in the literal wall where we were handed a set of paper-thin clothes. "Go to the shower room, boys! Strip, get in the showers, get cleaned completely, and then get out and get redressed! All of the instructions you need for the shower will be on the walls in the showers! Do it!" A guard ordered. We all hurried into the shower room that the guard had pointed to. I picked out a random shower and followed the instructions on the wall. After I was pelted with some gas stuff, I stumbled out of the shower, not caring that I would be naked in front of some guards and other inmates. The rest of the boys came out looking the same as I pictured I did. We all shuffled into our new prison uniforms and headed to where the guard was leading us. The guard led us to an elevator. "Well, this is goodbye for now, boys. Hope you enjoy your stay in Furnace." He said sadistically laughing and shoving us all onto the elevator. "Oh, and I hope none of you are claustrophobic!" he added as the elevator doors were closing.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two:

Once the elevator started dropping down into the earth, I slunk my way back into a corner of the elevator, as far away from the rest of the guys as I could. After a few minutes, I decided that it was too quiet in the small elevator.

"I'm Seth, and I didn't kill anyone. Sure I broke into a few places, but didn't kill anyone." I said looking around at everyone.

One of the boy's flashed me a grin. "Tyler Hadix. I didn't kill nobody either. I was framed. Straight up framed dude." He said. He looked to be Chinese or Korean, I couldn't really be sure. I nodded and looked at the other three, two of them stayed quiet. While the other one looked over at me.

"I hate humans, and I did kill people." The kid who had been glancing at me on the bus said. "John Palin, by the way." He added after his bold statement about hating humans. I nodded at him and then looked down at the floor. I glanced back up for a quick second to realize that Tyler and the other two, other than John, were doing the same. -  
The elevator ride seemed to go on forever. But when it did come to an end, I wish it hadn't of. The doors slowly opened and we were faced with a ton of prisoners. Most of them had sadistic grins on their faces, but I noticed one inmate definitely. Trey. Trey shoved his way past some prisoners and looked in the elevator, right at me. I offered him a smile, but he didn't return it. A group of kids in skull bandana's walked up in front of the elevator.

"Out!" One of them demanded. John Palin was the first one out of the elevator. "You all is now on Skull ground. Got it? The guards don't run down here, we do. What we say is what you do, no exceptions. We own you all now. You all is our's. If you got a problem wiv that, then you just gonna has to deal, shit heads." The rest of us stumbled out of the elevator and stood behind John. I couldn't believe this John guy had the guts to go face to face with whatever type of gang this was on the first day and not seem scared at all. John continued to stare right in the guy who seemed to be the leader's face.

"You gonna be first, tough boy." The leader of the gang said right when a siren rang out through the prison. All of the gang walked into a yellow circle in the middle of the prison where the rest of the inmates were. A large vault door across the courtyard opened, revealing a group of people, including some of the guards. A few of the guards were straining to hold back these giant dogs. The dogs were bigger than any dogs I'd ever seen in my life, and the guards were obviously having a hard time holding them back on their chains. Every time I tried sneaking a glance at what I guessed was the Warden in the middle of the group, my eyes would slide right away from him. It was freaky honestly.

"I'm Warden Cross, as most of you probably know already. Welcome to Furnace Penitentiary. Your crime's outside of this establishment does not matter to us, what matters is your behavior inside this prison. Be on your best behavior or else the proper punishment will be taken against you." The Warden said. I focused my eyes on one of the freaks in the gas masks that had came out of the vault door with the guards and Warden Cross. "Now that we have that out of the way, we need to assign cellmates." He took a pause for a few minutes. "Hayden Countell, inmate number 1293453, your cellmate is going to be Randy Rope."

I looked over at the kid who was apparently Hayden and saw him glance around at all the inmates in the yellow circle. One of the members of the gang that had greeted us walked forward. Hayden cast a glance around at the rest of us newer people and then slowly walked toward the guy who had walked forward.

"Next, Mohammad Hassan, inmate number 1293454, your cellmate is Quinton Xinlim." A guy with buzz-cut blond hair walked towards the outside of the yellow circle. He nodded towards Mohammad and Mohammad started walking towards him.

"Next, John Palin, inmate number 1293455, your cellmate is Trey Woodlee." Trey pushed his way past some of the guys in the yellow circle and nodded toward me before waving John Palin forward. "Next, Tyler Hadix, inmate number 1293456, your cell mate is Kobe Thomas."

"Fuck this shit." I heard from someone near the outside of the yellow circle. I looked to find the voice and saw that it was the supposed leader of the gang that had came up to get us off the elevator. The guards all glanced over toward him and he stopped his protests. Tyler reluctantly walked over to Kobe Thomas, I felt bad for Tyler instantly. He probably had the worst cellmate anyone could get.  
"And finally, Seth Slade, inmate number 1293457, your cellmate is Mathias Xinlim." Warden Cross finished. "Enjoy your stay at Furnace, boys." And within a few seconds, all of the guards, freaks in the gas masks, and the warden were back in the vault door and it was sealed. The same guy who had walked up to get Mohammad walked up to get me. He grabbed my arm and halfway dragged me over to where Mohammad and this taller guy were standing.

"Thats Mathias, my brother. He's blind, so no funny tricks when you guys are in your cell, got it? I swear if you pull something on him and I find out, I will kill you." Quinton said. I nodded quickly and looked over at Mohammad and Mathias. "So, where's our cell?" I asked slowly and quietly. "Fourth Floor. Mohammad and I's is only one floor up, so we'll come and get you and Matt in the mornings and walk you all back to the cell in the nights." Quinton said, nodding. I nodded and looked around, catching a glimpse of Trey and John Palin going up the stairs. Quint looked where I was looking at and smirked. "Oh so, you know Trey? Wait, you're the side-kick who did the crimes with him huh?" Quint asked, the smirk staying on his face.

"We're innocent of the murder, but yeah. I know him." I replied, glancing at Quint.

"Yeah, you're definitely gonna get it from the Skulls if they find out." Quint said, shaking his head. "Well, how about we show you all your new homes?" Quint placed a hand on Mathias' shoulder and they slowly started walking toward the stairs. Mohammad and I glanced around the prison again before following them. Life felt so different already inside, almost like I'd fallen into a whole different world or something while I was asleep at a jail last night. I no longer knew what time it was, some simple little details that no one thinks much of on the outside were already slipping from my memory.

Walking up four flights of stairs that first day was hell. It seemed to last forever, and once we got up to our cell, Quint and Mathias were already sitting there waiting.

"Yo, Slade. Your bunk is the top bunk, because yeah, just logic to give you the top bunk." Quint said. "Now, Hassan, come on, I'll show you our cell. Slade, watch out for my brother." I nodded as Quint got up and left the cell, with Mohammad following closely behind him. I looked over at Mathias and cleared my throat.

"I just thought I should say. I'm not a murderer." I stated, seeing as I was going to be living with Mathias for who knows how long. I was surprised when a grin lit up his face.

"Neither am I, neither is Quint. We were framed. Call me Matt, by the way." Mathias said. "Although, some people here, really did do their crimes. Not everyone here is a saint. And some definitely aren't once they get in here." I nodded and then remembered that he's blind. "Yeah. I hear you. I mean I guess I should of figured it since it is a prison." I said, letting out a small laugh. Matt chuckled. "So, Trey was a good friend of yours?" He asked.

"Yeah, he was. I don't know about how he'll act to me getting caught and being in here, but we were great friends outside of here." I replied. Matt nodded.

After a few minutes of silence, Mohammad and Quint were back at the cell door. "Trough time's soon." Quint said, grinning to himself. Matt stood up. And Quint escorted us all down to the yard of the prison. I saw looked around and spotted the other three people that Mohammad and I had came into the prison with. Tyler ran up to Mohammad and I as soon as he spotted us.

"Yo." Tyler said grinning. Mohammad raised a hand and Tyler slapped it with his own. I looked around and noticed that Quint and Matt were gone. I slightly started panicking in my head, because I was in a prison were murderers, and the two people who were showing me around were gone all of a sudden. I looked back at Tyler and Mohammad, realizing that they were in a conversation, when I felt a hand slap me on the shoulder. I looked to my side to find Trey standing there, with the John Palin guy behind him.

"Hi." I said, turning around to face him.

"Hey."He replied, smiling at me. "This is John, and John, this is Seth." John nodded toward me, and I returned the nod.  
"Trey, we kind of got left by Quint and Matt, me and Mohammad's cellmates. They were heading to the trough room." I informed Trey, figuring that that was slightly obvious but that I might as well point it out.

Trey nodded and took off walking toward an area of the prison. John, Mohammad, Tyler, and I followed him. When we walked in the trough room, everyone was getting themselves food on trays. Trey led us all to a table where Quint and Matt where sitting and we all sat down. A couple other inmates were at the table too. Trey and Quint went up to the line where the food was, and brought back multiple trays of some gunk that was apparently the food.

"Eat up. It's better hot, or whatever you call this temperature." Quint said with a smirk. Trey, Matt, and Quint all started eating, while John, Tyler, Mohammad, and I just sat there staring at the food. I only looked up once I heard a ton of laughing on the other side of the room. It looked like all of the inmates that were in whatever gang that was that welcomed us to the prison were tossing around a kid I recognized as Hayden Countell. Quint glanced at Tyler, Mohammad, and I, then over at the event happening.

"Any of you open your mouths or go over there, and I will kill you myself." Quint hissed at us all. Tyler and Mohammad instantly dropped their eyes to their trays, meanwhile John and I kept watching for a few minutes. Just long enough to see a tray go flying at Hayden. The guy who was supposed to be Hayden's cellmate started beating Hayden with the tray, while a siren started going off.

The siren had been going off for roughly a second when Quinton snapped his head up from his tray and stood up, grabbing Matt's arm in the process. Trey followed them both in standing up, and motioned for Trey, Mohammad, John, and I to do the same. We all quickly followed them out of the trough room, and headed out into the yard with most of the rest of the inmates. I could still hear Hayden getting hit with the tray, but I tried to block the sound out of my head. When we got out into the yard, Trey and John ran off in a different direction from Tyler, Mohammad, Quint, Matt, and I. We ran as quick as we could, Quint explaining as best as he could that the siren going off meant a lockdown, and that we all had around a minute to get into our cells or else we were dead meat.

Tyler left us when we reached his and Kobe Thomas' cell. Then Quint and Mohammad dropped Matt and I off at ours. The cells closed a few seconds after Matt and I had gotten into the cell, and I found myself praying that Mohammad and Quint had made it. I peered across the prison, trying to make out cells. I thought I saw Trey and John in one cell, but I couldn't be sure.

"Are the dogs out there?" Matt asked after a minute. I looked around, but saw nothing.

"No." I replied, walking back over to the bunks from the cell door. I pulled myself onto the top bunk that would now be my bed for as long as I was here, and laid down. I heard the bunk bed move slightly as Matt laid down too.

"Lockdowns this late usually last til the morning, so I'd try going to sleep if I were you." Matt stated. I nodded, even though thinking about shutting my eyes felt like an alien thought. I thought back through what all I'd been through in one short day, Hayden getting hit with the tray by his own cellmate, the siren piercing through normal speaking, the run back up to the cell. After a while, I felt myself drift off.

A/N: Any bad grammar on the part of Kobe Thomas and some other characters is on purpose, and meant to represent them as people.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three:

Little did I know, dreams in Furnace had to be worse than Furnace itself. In my dreams that night, the same sickening sound of Hayden getting hit by the tray kept playing over and over again, while I stood there, un-moving, not doing anything in my power to help Hayden. I looked around me and noticed the freaks in the gas masks standing there, I could make out their pig eyes through the gas masks, and they looked satisfied for some sick reason. I turned completely around, noticing that the gas mask freaks couldn't seem to see me at all. I spotted Trey, Quint, and Matt standing at the other end of the prison yard, looking as helpless and conflicted as I could picture them. All of the sudden, a howl broke through the still air. I spun back around and found two of the prison's dogs standing in front of the vault door, drooling and growling. They took off running toward Hayden, passing right by me in the process.

"Hayden! No!" I screamed, even though I barely knew anything about Hayden. "Hayden! Run! Do something!" All of my yelling was ignored by everyone in the prison, as if I wasn't there again. The dog's were quickly on top of Hayden. I noticed that Randy had moved out of the way, un-scratched by the dogs. I stared in horror as the dogs ripped Hayden apart. "No!" I kept yelling, trying to take a step forward to help Hayden. My feet wouldn't move though. Right before the dogs ripped Hayden's head off, he looked over at me, an almost pleading look in his gaze.

"Help me..." He whimpered to me, and then the dogs had ripped his head off. The dogs seemed pleased with their kill, and then they started racing across the prison toward Quint, Trey, and Matt. I looked back at Randy, noticing the dog's ran right past him. I almost did a double take at Randy, watching as before my eyes, he was almost turning into a guard. He seemed to be in agony as it was happening, but slowly, second by second, he was getting taller and wider. He let out a howl after a minute of his transformation.

I looked to where Trey, Quint, and Matt had been standing and saw them getting attacked by the hounds. "No! Not anyone else!" I called out, and the dogs stopped.

The dog's really stopped at my command. The gas mask freaks all looked at me too. I looked over at Randy and noticed he had changed into an all out guard, including the suit. All of the people and dog's in the prison were staring at me, as if I contained some sort of immense power.

I ran over to the trough room, finding a tray and staring at my reflection in it. What I saw sent me hurling myself out of the trough room in the dream. I was all that of a guard myself, except not nearly as big. One of my eyes was silver like the guards' eyes.

"No! No! No!" I yelled out once I got back into the prison yard. "What have you done to me? I'm not one of you! I'm an inmate! And an innocent one at that! I'm innocent! Do you hear me? I'm innocent!" I shouted out at no one in certain. "I'm not suppose to be here!"

Slowly and freakily, Warden Cross walked into the prison yard. "Oh yes, you are, my son." He said, a smile spreading onto his leather face.

"No, I'm not!" I shouted at him. I lashed out at the nearest freak and shoved him onto the ground. He let out a surprised squeal and shot up off of the ground. "I'm not one of you! I'm not going to be one of you! I don't belong to you!"

"My son, calm down. You will accept that in time. You do belong to me, as do the rest of the people here." Warden cross replied calmly.

I looked at everyone in the prison yard and then started sprinting up the prison stairs, letting out a yell from frustration. I ran up the flights of the stairs effortlessly, and soon found myself at the cell I shared with Matt. I walked in the cell and punched the wall, leaving a mark behind. "I'm not one of them!" I yelled out, leaning against the wall. "I'm just not..." I let out a cry against my own will power. None of this was making sense, I was just a kid, a normal kid. Not some monster freak who ran the prison. I wasn't that, and Randy... Randy had turned into one of them before my eyes.

I felt myself being shaken all of a sudden, and yet no one was near me. "Wake up, you idiot!" I heard out of nowhere. Great, now I'd gone insane. Whats next? The bunk bed's gonna start talking to me? "Wake up!" I felt myself get shaken even harder, and I opened my eyes. I saw Quint on my bunk with me.

"I'm not one of them!" I sputtered, looking around the cell. I saw Mohammad and Matt standing on the ground, near the door.

"What?" Quint asked, a confused look crossing his face. "Idiot, you slept through the sirens that signal morning. Come on. Gonna make us all late for breakfast and work." He said, jumping off of the bunk.

"What's work?" I questioned getting down off the bed.

"Oh, you'll see." Quint replied.

A/N: It's short...sorry.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter four:

I walked down the flights of stairs in a haze. I was still caught up in going over details of the dream that I had. I had to admit, the dream had freaked me out. It had felt so real, seemed so real. The people and the surroundings of the prison all looking identical to how I saw them right now. Everything looked exactly the same as to what I remembered it looking in the dream. I was worried about the 'work' though. Quint saying 'you'll see' had only worried me, and had done nothing to help my nerves about being in Furnace. I barely even paid attention as I stumbled down the stairs. The more I ignored what I was doing, the easier the long walk seemed. Once we got down to the yard, I spotted Trey, John, and Tyler standing around the trough room door. We all headed over toward the room. I took a minute to actually observe the walls and floor. Everywhere seemed to be blood-red, and no other colors. I let out a sigh, I was really hoping there would be an array of colors, but now that I thought about it, that was really a long-shot in any prison. Once they all walked into the trough room, I glanced around, noticing Hayden sitting at a table by himself. I felt sorry for him, but I was glad to see that the dream had really been a dream and that he hadn't been ripped to shreds. We all grabbed trays of food and sat down at our table that we were at yesterday. I tried to avoid looking at Hayden, but I couldn't help but look at him once I noticed a huge knot on his forehead, and both of his eyes were blackened. I shook my head and started trying to eat my food, figuring that it'd be better for me to eat before going to whatever the job's were here.

Breakfast passed quicker than I expected once I started eating the gunk. I could almost picture it as some form of applesauce or soup or something. Not that it tasted like any of those, or any thing really. But it was easier to eat it if I pictured something else instead of it. I felt bad for Hayden for most of breakfast, knowing that he couldn't even get away from the gang at night because his cellmate seemed to be one of the worst ones. When we exited the trough room, the screen over the vault door was playing a list of names, and I spotted my name along with Trey, John, Matt, Quint, Tyler, Kobe Thomas, Randy Rope, Hayden, and Mohammad's names on the list for something called "Chipping."

"Tough break." Quint said laughing. "First day here for jobs and you all get chipping duty." He laughed again and took off towards a hallway on the other side of the prison yard. We all followed behind him. I cast a glance over to where I saw Hayden standing. I broke off from the group that I was with and walked over to where Hayden was.

"Hey," I said, once I got near him. He looked up and tried to put a glare on, it failed though.

"What do you want?" Hayden snapped, looking around.

"Nothing, I just wanted to see if you needed help finding the chipping room. I got a group of people showing me around, so I figured I'd offer that you could walk with us." I said, looking around and seeing Trey, Quint, Matt, and the rest of our group waiting for me near a door. Hayden nodded slowly, and I took off walking toward them, with Hayden behind me. Once I reached them, I heard Hayden's footsteps right behind me still.

"Hey guys this is Hayden." I said to them all, Trey offered Hayden a nod. We all walked into the chipping hallway where Trey and Quint handed out pikes and hard-helmets to us all. There was a guard standing there and looking around.

"Floors one and two, room one. Floors two and three, room two. Any other floors, room three!" The guard shouted at us all. We all piled down the hallway toward the room that our floors were suppose to go to. Hayden followed me in the door and we all picked out a spot to start hitting the wall at.

"I'll warn you guys, it's hard work." Trey stated looking around at all of us. We slowly started hitting the wall with our picks, Matt aiming at the wall randomly and coming close to hitting Quint's foot a couple of times. I laughed everytime he almost hit Quint, and kept receiving glares from him everytime I did. Matt shot me a couple of smirks throughout the work.

It seemed to be forever before the work duty finished. The guard signalled us to stop and we all walked out of the room, throwing our picks and helmets onto a shelf thing in the hall. We were directed to a shower room where we all lined up in different shower areas. I picked a shower further away from where the gang's seemed to be at. Matt, Trey, Quint, Mohammad, and Tyler shuffled after me, with Matt ending up under the shower head next to me. We all showered in relative silence, before getting dressed into new uniforms and walking out toward the prison yard. When I walked by two kids who looked Asian, they made eye-contact with me, and one of them nodded. I returned the nod and continued walking. We walked in silence to the trough room where we all grabbed trays and walked to a table. To my surprise, Hayden followed us and sat down with us. I heard calls come up as soon as Kobe Thomas and Randy Rope walked into the room. I looked up and saw they were heading right toward us all.

"Hey there, gay boy!" Randy said, slapping Hayden on the back. All of our table looked up at them once they started taunting Hayden. "How's today going for you? You got yourself a boyfriend yet?"

Hayden glanced up at him. "I'm not gay..." He trailed off quietly.

"What was that? Did you just say you're gay? You came outta the closet?" Kobe piped up, laughing sadistically. Randy grabbed Hayden off of the bench that he was sitting on and dragged him across the room to the rest of their gang. Tyler stood up and Quint yanked him back down onto the bench. We all watched in silence as Hayden got thrown into the wall.

After a few minutes of watching Hayden get roughed up by the gang, we all finally stepped in to try to stop the fight. It turned into an all out fight between Trey, John, Quint, Mohammad, Hayden, and I and Kobe, Randy, and the rest of their gang. I was surprised when the two other Asian guys jumped into the fight too. I was also surprised at how good exactly the Skulls were in a fight. I mean I had figured they'd be good in a fight, considering they were a gang, but still. One of the Skulls had my arm twisted behind my back when a siren went off. Tyler ran over finally and grabbed me, yanking me up from under the other Skull. Then Tyler took off running out of the room. I understood why he didn't want to get in the fight, his cellmate was Kobe Thomas, if he got in the fight, he was gonna get shit for it. I got up slowly, and wiped off my nose. I was shocked when I saw blood on my hand from my nose, I had been unaware that it had been busted open.

"Come on! We got to get going!" Trey called out. Quint ran over and grabbed Matt by the shoulder and ran out of the trough room, leaving the rest of us behind. Trey, Mohammad, John, and I were heading out of the trough room when I got grabbed by Randy Rope. He pulled a shank out of his uniform and held it up against my neck. I looked over and saw Hayden slowly making his way out of the room. I knew I was done for when I looked around and didn't see any of my group of friends.

"Made a mistake, tough boy." Randy mumbled into my ear. I closed my eyes, waiting to feel the slice of the knife against my throat, when instead I felt Randy's arm that was on my neck get yanked away from my neck. I snapped my eyes open and saw the two Asian guys kicking at Randy while he was on the floor. I glanced around and saw that it was only us four in the trough room. John and Trey came running back into the room and grabbed me. They pulled me out of the trough room and up the stairs on their side of the prison. I ran with them, trying to keep up as much as possible. I heard a ton of hits coming up the stairs behind us, and I made the mistake of glancing behind us. I saw two giant hounds running up behind us. Trey and John looked back too. The dogs were too close, we tried speeding up, but the dogs just kept speeding up too. One of the dogs grabbed John by the leg and dragged him down some of the stairs. Trey and I instantly stopped and grabbed John's arms. John was screaming and kicking at the dogs head to no avail. I flung my leg out, catching the dog right in the eye and luckily it let go of it's hold on John's leg. Trey and I practically dragged and carried John up the rest of the flights of stairs to their cell. We all scrambled in and then the cell shut right as the dogs were getting to the cell. John was holding onto his leg where the dog bit him. The dogs tried to break the cell door by hitting it. After a few minutes, some guards showed up and carted the dogs off. A couple more guards came and opened up the cell door.

"You." Said one guard pointing right at me. "Come with us." I slowly got up not really paying attention and made my way to the door. The guards grabbed me by my arms and led me down the stairs to the yard. I knew I had just had it, they were going to finish me off, feed me to the dogs, something. Something horrible.

Then they led me across the yard to the other staircase and dragged me up the stairs to Matt and I's cell. I was so surprised that they had led me to our cell. Then they opened up the cell door and tossed me in onto the floor. I quickly got off the floor, and looked out the cell door.

"You're alive." Matt said after a few seconds. "I thought you had gotten killed. I told Quint that we needed to go back for you, but he kept dragging me toward the cells. I'm sorry." He got up off of his bed and grabbed me into a hug. I returned the hug, happy that I was alive. I was surprised at that fact too. I thought they were going to kill me as soon as they found me in Trey and John's cell. After Matt and I stopped hugging, I climbed up onto my bunk, back in the same haze I was in walking up to the cell, and laid down. I could've died and it didn't seem real.

Of course, as soon as that fact hit home after a couple hours of the lights being off in the prison, I started crying. I didn't know why really. But I guess almost having died does that to you. Plus those dogs had looked freaky up close, freakier than I could ever explain.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five:

A week had passed. A week of nothing but torture from the Skulls, hard work, and living. Not even really living, more like surviving. If there was going to be any New Fish my only advice for them would be: 'you don't live in here, you survive. You have no life once you get off that elevator.' No New Fish had shown up yet though surprisingly. After the close encounter with the hell hounds that Trey, John, and I had had, I had spent more time with Matt. I had also hung out with Trey and John. Hayden, on the other hand, had been putting more and more distance behind himself and I. Apparently us all saving him from death wasn't that good in his mind since he just pushed us away after that, without even a simple thanks. Quint would make comments about telling us all how much we'd wasted on saving some worthless scum like Hayden Countell. I hadn't made up my mind on whether or not it was a waste to save Hayden from getting killed by Randy and Kobe yet. I trudged my way out of the work duty, as I did each day, with Matt behind me. I looked around and saw that everyone that was in the prison yard was staring at the elevator. I listened for a second, and heard the elevator making noises. New Inmates. A bunch of "New Fish!" calls started around the prison. Matt and I walked to where I saw the rest of our group in the yellow circle in the middle of the prison yard. The Skulls walked over to the elevator door and waited.

After a couple of seconds, the elevator door opened slowly. I peered into the elevator to see three kids inside of it. They all looked young, but I was use to prison faces by now, and they definitely didn't have a prison face, I thought that they probably would soon though. Both of the kids refused to get out of the elevator, so Randy and Kobe went in after them. Randy and Kobe tossed them out and onto the prison floor. I turned my eyes away from the view. I was tempted to help them in any way I could, but the last time I helped someone all I got was a black eye and almost killed by hell hounds. No way was I risking that again. John had gotten bit by one of them and was still halfway limping from it. I wasn't risking me and my friends' lives' again. Kobe and Randy gave the two new guys the same speech that we had gotten when we first got to Furnace. All three of the kids looked young and looked terrified. I wondered if John, Tyler, Mohammad, Hayden, and I looked exactly like that when we had arrived only a week earlier. In a weeks time, we had already adjusted to prison life and now had the whole prison look. I wondered if we looked like all of the other murderer's here, and I figured that we did by now. One of the kids had light brown hair and eyes and was crying, one of the others had blonde hair and brown eyes, and the other had black hair and dark brown eyes and was trying to help the brown haired kid up. I glanced over at Quint and he gave me a glare that practically shouted 'you do anything and I'll kill you.' Based on that glare alone, I took a couple steps forward, and pushed my way past Kobe and Randy. I grabbed the brown haired kids hand and slowly pulled him up off of the ground. He let me pull him up although he looked scared.

"Don't let them beat you like that." I mumbled before walking back to the yellow circle. A siren broke through the silence that had settled over the prison when I walked toward the new kids. I was guessing that was the first time anyone in the prison had seen anyone else being nice to a new kid. Quint glared at me when I walked back closer to our group of guys and I shrugged, taking my spot back next to Matt. Kobe and Randy shoved past me and got to the middle of the circle. I glanced over at the vault door in time to see it opening and Warden Cross and his crowd walking out. I resigned my eyes to the floor and then looked back at the new kids. The Warden introduced them to prison and then went to call out their cellmates. The brown haired one was Stephan Locklee, the black haired one Alexander Rackston, and the blond haired one was Jayson Weston. I saw Jayson eyeing the levels of floors as he walked off with his cellmate after the Warden went back into the vault door. I took off walking toward the trough room, ignoring Quint's complaining about me just drawing attention to us all. I grabbed a tray and sat down at a table in the corner. I realized something in the few minutes of Matt, Trey, John, Mohammad, Tyler, and Quint walking past my table and to their usual table. Furnace had beaten me. I had let Furnace Penitentiary take away my will, my own soul, my hope to get out of here one day. I guess you could say I lost it when the hell hounds almost ate us all. Or maybe when I saw those new kids, I wasn't sure, but I just knew it was gone. I heard a bunch of calls from out in the hall to the trough room, and recognized them as Kobe and Randy. I sat there and picked at my food. After a few minutes, all of the new guys walked into the trough room and looked around. Stephan looked over at me and instantly started walking toward me. He got to my table and sat down across from me. The other two new inmates walked over after him.

"I'm Stephan." The kid sitting across from me said. I nodded and smiled as best as I could at him.

"I'm Seth." I replied. He smiled and looked over at the other two new inmates. They both sat down in the two other chairs at the table. I looked over at the table where the rest of my group was sitting and saw most of them all looking over at me, none of their expressions looked happy with the fact that the new kids were sitting with me. "Sit here and I'll go get you all some food, okay?" I said getting up and walking up toward the area where all of the food and trays were. I stacked three trays on top of each other and carried them all back to my table with the new kids, I sat a tray in front of each of them and then sat down.

"How do you make it here? I mean we've been here for barely any time and we've already gotten threats about our lives." Jayson said, looking down at his food. I shook my head.

"You just learn to deal, I guess." I replied, taking a bite of my food. "It gets easier. You get use to it."

"I doubt it." Jayson snapped.

The rest of the day went by awkwardly. I didn't really hang out with anyone, trying to watch out for the new kids, and getting avoided by the rest of my former group of friends. That night I headed back to my cell alone. I knew that more than likely Matt was already up in the cell, but I didn't expect him to talk to me. I knew that I'd more than likely just alienated myself from anyone who would help me out in a fight. I had made another stupid mistake and I knew what happened if you made too many mistakes in Furnace. You died.

When I got into Matt and I's cell, I wasn't surprised to find him sitting on his bed. I was even less surprised that he acted as if I hadn't just walked into the cell. I climbed up onto my bunk and laid down. Sliding into sleep was easy, waking up to sirens sounding and blood red light wasn't so easy.

I jumped up from my bunk bed and looked around. This was the first time that that had happened, I had no clue what to do. "Matt! Matt, whats going on?" I called down to Matt, not moving from my bed.

"Just lay back down. You don't want to be seen during a blood watch." Matt said. From the sound of his voice, I knew that this was something bad. I laid down but faced the door. I looked out and spotted Wheezers walking through the vault door. They were all moaning and groaning. They let out a collective scream and then headed for the stairs. I could heard Matt saying something that sounded like he was praying.

"Matt, whats going on?" I quietly asked once I couldn't see the wheezers anymore.

"Just lay down and look asleep, please Seth." He replied. He sounded scared, so I pulled my thin sheet back up to my neck, but I kept facing the door. I needed to see what was going on. Needed to know. I wish now that I had looked away, that I hadn't watched, but I watched anyway. I silently begged myself to look away, but my eyes stayed glued on the door. One of the wheezers walked right up to our cell, and peered in. I halfway screamed at the sight of it, and Matt's silent begging got slightly louder. I could make out what Matt was saying now.

"Not us, please God, not us. Not me. Not Seth. Not anyone I know. Please." Matt was whispering repeatedly. The Wheezer let out a scream but then moved on, not having done anything to our cell. I let out a breath, not sure why I was relieved at the time. I laid my head down, my eyes closing for a second before snapping back open. I heard a chorus of screams from around the prison. Thats when the vault door opened. Blacksuits walked out of the vault door. There was no wheezer in front of our cell, but across the prison I could see wheezers in front of some cells. I knew that whatever was going on, wouldn't end well for the people in the cells that the wheezers were in front of.

"Is there a wheezer in front of our cell?" Matt whispered.

"No." I replied. I heard Matt let out a breath. Matt sounded relieved, so I figured whatever bad was happening, wasn't going to happen to us. Not tonight at least. I saw kids from all of the prison getting dragged toward the vault door by the blacksuits. I watched horrified while they got dragged away. After they were gone, I closed my eyes, but the wheezers face stayed plastered there. Stayed plastered in my dreams all the rest of the night.

That night, I dreamed of being a wheezer.

I hated myself when I woke up the next morning. I believed I had been a wheezer, a real live wheezer. I had dreamed of that, and the dream wasn't exactly a nightmare. I was welcomed by Warden Cross as a wheezer. I was told I was the best Wheezer he had. That I was the best son he had. And I liked it. I liked the acceptance. I liked being useful and needed. And I hated myself for that now. I truly lost the last piece of my naive self that night. I truly did. I was no longer the little kid from the outside who hung out with his best friend and then decided to break into stores. No. I was something much worse now. I was a murderer. I was in prison. And I liked it now. I no longer feared the gangs. No longer feared the blacksuits. I was just insane now I guess. I was just there, not really even there. It was like my body was there and my mind hated my body for being there. It was like a war inside me. Two people fighting each other for control. One who wanted to get out, wanted really bad to go back to being outside and goofing off. And once who wanted to be on the Wardens side, wanted to run this place, wanted to be here. I hated the part that wanted to be there, but that part of me hated the part that wanted to escape. I just wanted to be happy and be one whole person. But apparently that wasn't happening. I felt like it was WWII going on inside of my body. I just wanted to get out of my body. Just wanted to get out of here. Out of the world. I got down off of the bed and walked over to the cell door. I glanced up a few levels of cells and looked at the seventh level. I could jump. I could kill myself, easily. No one would stop me. Everyone probably already thought of doing it. I knew everyone had to of thought about it. Why wouldn't they? This place was hell. Worse than hell even. I just needed to get out of the world. Get out of myself. Get out of this place. I wanted out of here. But would I go to hell? Would I go anywhere? Or would I be stuck forever in Furnace?

I stayed anti-social for a while. Just ignoring anyone and everyone. I didn't even talk to Matt anymore. I wanted to be out of Furnace and I wanted to get out anyway I could. I knew what way I could. Suicide. I just wanted to get out, so could anyone blame me for planning it? A part of me was stolen away that night that the blood watch had came. It hadn't even taken anyone I knew yet it had stolen some of me. I wasn't the little kid anymore who just thought that one day Furnace would be closed down, we all would have our cases looked at again. I knew that that wasn't going to happen. I sat up at night planning, wishing, begging. I wondered what I'd ever done that was so bad for me to end up here. I wondered why Matt had ended up here.  
Then one day, I was sitting on our level's floor, with my arms on the railings, and I looked up. On the seventh floor level, I saw three bodies. I bolted up and looked at them even more. I knew what they were going to do. They were going to jump. I didn't know who it was, but they were going to jump. I ran back into my cell where Tyler, Mohammad, Quint, and Matt were sitting.

"Theres jumpers!" I yelled out, they all looked at me like I was a zombie.

"So?" Quint said. "Let them jump. It's their choice."

"Hell no. I'm not letting them jump." I said. I knew that they weren't going to help me, so I decided not to waste anymore time trying to tell them. I took off running out of the cell and down the stairs. I ran to the other side of the prison yard and took off up the stairs. Seven flights of stairs later, I was gulping air down my lungs. I heard footsteps coming up the stairs behind me. I saw who it was on the edge. Jayson, Alexander, and Stephan. I let out a breath. I had abandoned them when I went insane. When I was planning suicide, so were they.

"Guys..." I said quietly.

"Leave us alone!" Jayson yelled at me, looking downward toward the prison yard. Alexander and Stephan looked at me. They didn't look so sure about this plan of their's. "GET AWAY, SETH!" Jayson shouted even louder. He looked mad, extremely mad. I looked behind me and saw Tyler, Mohammad, and Matt. I turned back to Jayson, Alexander, and Stephan. I couldn't let them jump. I just couldn't.

"Guys, please don't do this. It's not that bad..." I trailed off.

"BULLSHIT!" Jayson cried out, looking at me with a kind of hate that I had never seen in any 12 year old kid's eyes. "IT'S AS BAD AS IT CAN GET! IT'S NOT GOING TO GET BETTER! YOU LEFT US! WE GOT TORTURED! You don't know how bad our life is!" He called out, his voice breaking at the end. I turned my eyes away from Jayson and looked at Stephan.

"Stephan, don't do it. It's not that bad. I can help you. We can help you." I said quietly. "Same goes for you Alexander. We can help both of you. Just don't do it." Stephan nodded slowly.

"I'm not dying alone!" Jayson called out. Jayson took a hand off of the railing and grabbed onto Stephans shoulder. After a few seconds, Jayson let his other hand go of the railing and put it on Alexanders shoulder. "I'm not dying alone!" He called out again.

"Don't do it!" I called out. Jayson flipped backwards, pulling Alexander and Stephan off of the edge with him. I ran forward and threw my arms over the railing. I managed to grab onto Stephans arm.

"Seth!" Stephan let out as a yell. "I'm sorry!" Alexander grabbed onto Stephans waist to try and pull himself up above Jayson.

"It's alright kid!" I said. "Grab onto the floor, you're the only one keeping you all up right now. I got to get onto the edge."

Stephan nodded and let go of my hand, placing his back onto the floor. I quickly jumped over the railing and landed on the edge. I grabbed onto Stephans arm again.

"Jayson! We can find a way out of here! We don't have to stay in Furnace!" I called out to him. Jayson shook his head.

"No! There's no way out! Stephan, dont listen to him! There's no way out! Let go!" Jayson yelled.

"Help me guys!" I yelled at Tyler, Mohammad, and Matt. I heard another set of footsteps, and saw a blond guy I hadn't seen before jump over the railing beside me. He grabbed onto Stephans arm too, and looked at me and nodded.

"Let go, I got him." He said calmly. I nodded down at Stephan and let go of his arm. I turned back to Matt, Tyler, and Mohammad. "Come on guys!" I yelled at them. They all walked over to the edge. Matt grabbed onto my shoulders, and Tyler slipped over the railing. I saw Mohammad grab onto Tyler and the other guys arms. Tyler reached a hand down toward Alexander, and Alex grabbed onto Tyler's hand. I stuck a foot over the edge of the floor.

"Last chance!" I yelled down at Jayson. "Grab onto the foot or I'm kicking you." "We can get out! I know a way!" The other guy who came to help yelled down at Jayson.

"Screw you all!" Jayson yelled at me. I let out a breath and kicked at Jayson's face. My foot met his nose but he held onto Alex and Stephan. "They're coming with me!" He said flinging himself around. I kicked at his face again, this time landing a more solid kick to his nose. His hands came off of Stephan and Alexander and he flew down toward the ground. His scream following him all the way down. Tyler and the guy who came to help us pulled Stephan and Alex up onto the floor. Stephan's arm's instantly wrapped around me.

"I'm sorry.." He said quietly. I nodded. The other guy jumped over the railing. Tyler, Stephan, Alex, and I all climbed back over the railing. The guy walked ahead of us all.

"Hey wait!" I called out. He turned and looked at me. "Is what you said true?" "Yeah, it is. I'm getting out, you all can come with me if you want to. I'm Jack by the way." He said before turning around and walking down the stairs.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six:

Jack's offer to get us all out of Furnace had lifted my spirit's. In the next few days, I spent less time thinking about jumping and more time hanging out with Jack. Jack was a military kid from California. His name was Jackson Brenton. When he got framed for murder, even his parent's thought he did it. They had practically given him away to the police. Everyone had never expected him to have murdered anyone considering his dad's career in the Army. He had been in the penitentiary for three years. He got there when he was 13 and now he was 16. He had spent all three years trying to figure a way out of Furnace. I tried to help him as much as possible with plans. While Stephan and Alexander had started hanging out with Trey, John, and Matt. Quint had been stand-offish ever since I had decided to help Stephan and Alex though. But me, Jack, John, Trey, Matt, Alexander, Stephan, Tyler, and Mohammad had started eating together for all three meals and spending a lot of time planning. Jack's addition to our group seemed to bring life and hope back into all of us. Of course, when you're in a prison who wouldn't sort of get hope back when faced with the idea of escape. I didn't like the fact that I had actually killed Jayson, but I saved two lives for the price of one. Although that didn't help the fact any.

Work duty was pretty much the same. I mainly ended up on chipping duty, but a few times we'd end up on trough room or laundry. Luckily, I never got 'the stink', which was code word for clean up other people's bathroom's. Not a very fun job from what I've heard. Of course I guess anyone could guess that. Jack introduced me to his friend Will, who had blond hair and blue eyes. Jack said that Will was coming with us whenever we planned to get out. After a couple weeks, we started planning even more. Matt, Jack, Will, and I put a ton of effort into the plans, and I guess that's what made the time pass easier now. Time didn't seem to matter as much as it had when I was thinking about jumping. We just had a focus now, we had to focus on getting out. On seeing sunlight again. Furnace seemed calm anymore.

Which is why I was surprised when I heard a loud bang and saw this guy, Christopher Court, tackling another guy that I recognized as Joshua Portal. It looked like a blood bath within seconds, yet no siren had gone off so far. All of the Skulls were gathered around and letting out calls for Christopher to hit Joshua harder. I could hardly recognize Joshua after a few minutes of him being relentlessly beat by Christopher. Still no siren went off. "We might wanna get going, I don't wanna be here when the dogs come out." Jack said getting up. I helped Matt up and we all headed toward the cells. Right after Matt and I got into our cell, a long siren blew out. I knew that if Joshua hadn't gotten in a few punches, he was more than likely dead by now. After a minute or two, all of the cells closed and locked. I thought that most everyone had gotten back in their cells. I looked down to the prison yard and saw Christopher still hitting Joshua. After a second, guards and dogs stormed out. Two guards grabbed Christopher up, and dragged him through the vault door, while some other guards grabbed what use to be Joshua and took him through the vault door. From the second I looked at Joshua while they were carting him away, I knew he was dead and that he wouldn't be coming back. I turned back and looked at Matt.

"We gotta get outta here." He mumbled. "I don't wanna die in this place."

"We'll get out. Soon too." I said. "I just know we will. Now that we got Jack and Will, we'll be outta here in no time."

Matt nodded and I turned back to looking outside of our cell. I watched as the guards and the dogs walked around the prison yard looking for any stranglers. I figured that we'd be in lockdown for the rest of the day, unfortunately. I wanted to get back out and keep planning our escape from the prison. I looked around and saw John and Trey's cell. They weren't exactly helping us plan our escape, but I knew they wanted out. Heck, who wouldn't want to get out of this hell hole? I couldn't think of anyone who would want to be in here, I don't even think the people who legit did the crimes they were put in here for wanted to be here. Well, some of them probably did, but they were insane. The important thing is that most of us didn't want to be here. Never wanted to be here. I knew I definitely didn't want to be there. I spent most of the rest of night while the lights were on just staring out into the prison yard. I saw Christopher come back into the prison yard and get escorted back to his cell.

After a while, the lights shut off abruptly as they always did. I walked over to the bunk bed and climbed up onto the top, laying down. I didn't want to believe that Furnace had been too quiet for too long. That nothing bad had really happened, other than Christopher killing Joshua. I mean no Skirmishes, no blood watches, no nothing. Something just wasn't right in my mind.

I fell asleep after a few more minutes of trying to figure out why nothing had happened, and awoke the next morning. No Blood Watch again. Thankfully. I hated the idea of the Blood Watch. It horrified me. I had dreams of being taken in a Blood Watch, having my friends be taken by the Wheezers. Still none of that had happened though, and for that I was glad. I didn't want to lose anyone. Didn't want to deal with what I dealt with in my dreams. I hated the dreams of the Blood Watches, of the Wheezers wheezing their way into our cell to grab us at night. I didn't want to dream of being a blacksuit, being a Wheezer. Being an anything but myself. I didn't want to let Furnace win against me, but some little voice inside my head said that Furnace had already won. Most of all, I didn't want to be the next person to die in Furnace.

Later that day, Jack, Will, Matt, and I were all sitting in Matt and I's cell talking about our plans. We had figured out an idea of a way out. We'd just figure out a way to create a collapse in the wall, anyway we could in room two of the chipping rooms. Room two, because Will and Jack knew that room better than room three. It'd be easy to do. Will had already figured out how to do it. Take out one of the wood pieces keeping the ceiling up. All we needed after that was a strike of luck that we'd find a way out. Granted it wasn't the best plan possible, but we just really wanted out. We needed out. And getting killed trying to escape was better than staying here, and giving up. We spent the rest of the day being happy and filling Trey, John, Alexander, Stephan, Mohammad, Tyler, and Quint in on the plan. I was surprised at dinner when Hayden walked over to our table and sat down.

"I'm sorry." He said. "I shouldn't of avoided you like I did after you tried to help me. I was stupid."

"It's alright dude." I replied. I didn't really blame Hayden anymore. I mean who wouldn't avoid the guy that got them beat up even more. I didn't blame him at all, I would've done the same exact thing. I just had to admit to myself that I would've. I was no different than Hayden. And Hayden deserved a chance at freedom too. I found myself arguing with myself over whether or not we should've taken Hayden with us.

That night, Matt and I were still joking when the lights went off. It's amazing what even a small taste of freedom could do to people. Especially people innocent of their crimes. Matt and I were high on excitement as some people might say. But I knew the truth, we just enjoyed being cellmates, and enjoyed the idea of being free together. We both wanted out, and not just for the freedom. We mainly wanted out for the part of us that was still innocent naive kids.

I just didn't know how quickly Matt and I's fun was going to be cut short. At least I didn't know until I woke up to the scream of a siren and blood red lights, yet again.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven:

I shot straight up on my bunk. I didn't want the Blood Watch to happen tonight. Not when we were so close to figuring out a way out of the prison. I didn't want to risk losing one or more of my friends to the Wheezers and to the prison. I just knew somewhere in my brain that somehow Warden Cross had found out our plans and was just going to take us all. I just knew it.

I slowly laid back down in my bunk after a few minutes. This was the first blood watch that I had just laid back down during and not watched. It was a different attempt toward a blood watch for me. I heard Matt talking to himself again on the bed under mine. I was worried, I had to admit that, but this blood watch felt different from the others, and I didn't know whether or not that was a good thing. I heard the wheezes of the Wheezers outside in the prison yard. It was a warning sign that they were about to pick their victim's. I just had to hope that me and my friends weren't the victim's this time. I heard Matt once again praying during the blood watch, it seemed to be his thing to do. Which I guess if any time is right to turn to praying it'd be during a blood watch, when you're about to find out if that night is the night you die or not. I figured that this would be the end for us all, due to our plans to get out. Fate's sick way of screwing us all over. Right when we were about to get out to just get killed by the sick freaks of Furnace. I peered over at the cell door as soon as I heard a wheezing scream, signalling that a wheezer had chosen it's victim. The thing though, was that the scream was too close. Too close to the cell. It sounded as if the scream had taken place right in the cell with us. I spotted a wheezer outside the cell door, right as it marked our cell.

"No!" I screamed, shooting upright on my bed and sliding off of my bunk. "Hell no! No! Not tonight! No! God no!"

Matt got up off of his bed, and I noticed that he looked terrified.

"Well, I guess that hopes over." He said slowly.

"Which one of us is it taking? Matt, pay attention, which one of us is it taking!" I said, trying to shake him out of whatever haze he was in.

"I don't know. You don't know until they get here." He said after a few seconds. "Seth, I'm going to miss you. Please, just keep going on with the plan to get out of here." He rambled, not seeming to care that the Wheezer was right there.

"If they take you, I'm not leaving here without you." I muttered, hugging Matt. Matt returned the hug. That's when the Blacksuits came. They opened the cell and yanked Matt backwards. One of the blacksuits shoved me backwards against the bunk beds. Matt tried to fight his way out of the suits grip, but the dudes grip was just too hard. They dragged him out of the cell and before I could get up again the cell door was closed.

"Matt! Matt, I'm not leaving without you!" I yelled, grabbing onto the cell-door. "I swear, Matt! Matt! I'm so sorry!"

I let go of the bars after a few minutes. I peered over to Trey and John's cell to see blacksuits yanking one of them out of the cell too. It was hard to tell which one it was at this distance. I just knew that the plan was going to fail, especially if Jack or Will got taken too. Maybe the Warden hadn't figured out our plan. Maybe this had just been another blood watch, I didn't care. They had taken at least two of my only friends in the prison. I punched the wall in frustration, leaving my knuckles bloodied. I didn't care though. I didn't care about anything. This prison was going to pay as far as I was concerned. I slowly walked back over to the bunk beds and sat down on Matt's bunk. I heard the vault door close and the lights went back to pitch black. I sat on that bunk bed for I don't know how long before I looked up from the floor.

"I'm not leaving without you..." I mumbled, finally giving in and crying about Matt being taken by the blacksuits and the wheezers.

"I know you won't, Seth." I heard a familiar voice say. I looked to my side and sure enough, I saw Matt sitting there."Sure, I got taken, but you'll get out. And you'll take a piece of me with you. You won't be leaving my memory behind."

"I'm not leaving any part of you behind." I said, wishing the illusion in front of me was real. The vision in front of me smiled a sad smile.

"Seth, you got to focus on getting out of here. Not on me. I mean jeez, here you are talking to a figment of your imagination. I mean sure, I look real. Hey, I can even see you in my current imagination form, but I'm not real Seth. They just took me. They're going to kill me. There's no way to get me back." The illusion continued. I shook my head. The illusion sadly had a point. I was arguing with myself. I had gone insane.

"I don't care if you're my imagination! I'm getting you out of here with me!" I yelled at the illusion. Matt slowly faded away, leaving just a bare prison mattress beside me. "I'm getting you out of here... I don't care what I have to do."

I punched at the mattress, giving up trying to figure out how I was going to get Matt back. I would save that for tomorrow.

I guess I fell asleep on Matt's bunk, because that's where I woke up the next morning when the siren went off. I slowly stood up and walked over to the cell door. I paced in front of it until it finally opened. I wasn't my old self. I wasn't the little kid who had ended up here by a stroke of bad luck. I wanted to kill someone now. I walked out of my cell and stood by the railing, waiting for what I knew was coming. Quint ran down to the cell and looked inside. I heard him cursing when he saw no Matt. He walked out of the cell and grabbed me by my prison overalls, leaning me dangerously out over the prison yard.

"You son of a bitch! You let him get taken!" Quint was yelling at me. I saw tears in his eyes, and I didn't do anything, even though I was leaning out over the yard which was floor levels away from where I was. "Hes gone..." Quint trailed off letting me go. He kicked at the railing and then slid down to the prison floor.

"I hate them for taking Matt." I said slowly, looking down at Quint. I saw Mohammad and Tyler standing nearby.

"Leave me alone!" Quint said, pushing himself off of the floor and shoving me down. He walked off while I got up after a minute. I saw John running up to us all, and I cursed under my breath. John never ran up here, him and Trey would always meet us in the trough room.

"They took Trey!" John called out as soon as he was within hearing distance. I shook my head and looked out over the prison yard. Of course they had taken Trey. They took two of our stronger group members, of fucking course. Jack, Will, Alexander, and Stephan walked up slowly and looked at us all, waiting for someone to talk.

"They took Matt, and Trey." Tyler said after a second. I turned around and looked at them all. I pushed my way past them and walked down the stairs. I heard them all walking behind me, but I didn't care. For once in my life in Furnace Penitentiary, I didn't care. I didn't care what happened. I couldn't care less if I got killed by some gang member or Christopher Court today.

Work duty went by the same as usual. I walked across the prison yard until I saw what I was looking for. I went up to Randy Rope. I swung my fist toward his jaw and connected. Within seconds, I had all of the Skulls gang surrounding me. After about a minute, they were all taking their turns to punch and kick me. I somehow ended up on the floor and just stayed there. Not caring that I was getting the shit beat out of me. So what if I died? Wasn't that what I wanted? I mean that seemed to be the only way out of Furnace.

Furnace had beat me. I hated to say it, but just when I was getting use to this place and was about to make a break for it, Furnace found a way to beat me back down. Beat my mood, my attitude, my life. I was shocked when the Skulls seemed to suddenly stop beating me, and I felt rough hands on my shoulders. I looked up to see Quint dragging me up. I saw Alexander, John, Jack, Will, Stephan, Tyler, Mohammad, and Hayden around me too. I got dragged up and dragged toward the trough room. I felt like my face was on fire, along with my ribs.

"Don't ever mention me saving your mother fucking ass." Quint snarled in my ear. "I did it for Matt. Cause he for some reason liked your idiotic asshole self. That was a stupid move, Slade, stupid move."

Quint tossed me down onto a seat at our usual table. I let out a groan and looked around. I saw Hayden sit down across the table from me.

"Are you okay?" He asked slowly. "I mean damn dude that punch was awesome and all but was it worth it?" I nodded slowly, the movement hurting my neck and back. I let out another moan and looked around more.

I saw Alexander and Stephan slide into seats near Hayden and I at the table, Alexander taking a seat right next to me. Jack and Will were talking to a couple Skulls across the trough room. I laid my head down on our table only to have a tray slam down next to my head.

"Eat you idiot." Quint hissed at me, glaring at Alexander until he got up and moved over a seat. Quint sat down next to me and glared at me. Quint started eating his own food and I slowly sat up and took a bite of mine. Jack and Will walked across the trough room looking frustrated.

"They want a fight with Seth in the gym. They've red-handed him." Jack said after a second.

Quint shook his head, grabbed his tray, and got up. I watched him walk across the room and sit down at a empty table. Jack took the seat that Quint had been in.

"Red-handed doesn't mean you're safe, by the way. It means you're the opposite of safe. You'll have to fight them one on who knows how many of them in their gym. I'm sorry kid, I should've warned you before now." Jack said, casting me a sad look. "I don't know when they'll want you either. Could be today, could be tomorrow, could be months from now."

I let out a groan and turned back to my food. After a few minutes, I looked up again to see Kobe and Randy walking toward me grinning.

"Tonight, the gym. Someone be coming for ya." Kobe said, letting out a sadistic laugh. "Good luck, tough boy." And with that they walked away, and I had the knowledge that I'd more than likely be killed on the same day that I had already gotten the shit beat out of me.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight:

I sat in silence for the rest of lunch, and then throughout most of the rest of the day. I knew I was doomed. I was dead meat. The Skulls were going to kill me in whatever skirmish they had planned for me to have to go through in the gym. After a while of sitting at a table in the prison yard after dinner, a Skull I didn't know walked up and grabbed me roughly by the arm. He started dragging me toward the gym. I looked back and saw Jack and Will hurrying after me and the Skull, while Alexander, Stephan, John, Hayden, Tyler, and Mohammad watched us all go. After the gym doors closed, the Skull dropped me down onto the gym floor. Jack quickly pulled me up.

"We don't have no beef with you, Aston." Kobe Thomas yelled from inside of the ring in the middle of the gym. I took a look at the ring and then after a moment realization sunk in. That ring was going to be where I got the hell beat out of me.

"I don't care, Kobe." Jack replied, looking over at me. I must have paled after figuring out what that ring was for, because Jack looked slightly concerned. "Look, just stay on your feet." He mumbled to me. I nodded, even though I felt like I was going to fall down right now, and I hadn't even been hit yet. This definitely wasn't going to go good at all.

"So, who all called this skirmish to happen?" Kobe called out, looking around the gym. I watched as Randy Rope and three other Skulls got into the ring. "Randy Rope, Jacob Slater, Christopher Court, and Lee Snatch versus Seth Slade. Have fun boys."

A couple Skulls that were standing near Jack, Will, and I grabbed me and tossed me into the ring. I immediately felt kicks going straight into my sides, lighting my ribs on fire. I saw Jack try to walk toward the ring, but a few Skulls blocked his path. The Skulls in the ring with me backed up for a second, long enough for me to stand up. I threw my fist out randomly, catching Jacob Slater in the chin. After my punch to Jacob, the other three Skulls were back on me. I didn't really have a good feeling about how this fight would turn out, seeing as I was getting my ass kicked currently. I mean, how much of a comeback could I have when fighting four people? After a few more minutes of intense pain from punches and kicks to my ribs and face, I saw Jack and Will talking to a Hispanic-looking Skull. I saw the Skull nod before I got dragged to the middle of the ring again. All of the sudden the fight stopped, and the Hispanic Skull got in the ring.

"Fight's over." He said quietly. "I'm hitching a ride out with you." He mumbled in my ear. He held me up long enough to toss me out to Jack and Will. Jack and Will slowly pulled me up off of the floor and halfway dragged me outside of the gym.

"What was I suppose to do? I wasn't gonna let another one of us die." Jack muttered to me. I tried to nod, but just ended up wincing and letting out a moan at the pain the attempt to nod caused me.

"Gods sake, is that him?" Tyler yelled from his spot at a table before running over to help Jack and Will.

"Who else would it be, dumbass?" Jack asked. Tyler nodded and led the way back to the table with the rest of our group of people. I looked around to see a ton of inmates watching our slow walk across the prison yard.

"Should we get him up to his cell?" Stephan asked. Jack nodded and slid out from under one of my arms. Tyler took Jack's place after a second.

"Alright, come on." Tyler said. Will slid out from under my other arm and Mohammad took his place. We all slowly started to make our way up the stairs, with Tyler and Mohammad switching out with John and Stephan halfway up the walk to my cell. After we finally got up there, they tried to gently lay me down onto the bottom bunk, which was impossible to find a comfortable place when you've had the shit beat out of you. I finally gave up trying to get comfortable and just laid there for the rest of the time that the lights were on in the prison. After everyone else had left and the lights were off, I finally fell asleep. Which wasn't as good as being awake, especially when you have a dead cellmate haunting your dreams only a day after he died.

The dream started with me just standing in front of the cell door looking out over the prison yard. I was just watching as everyone else seemed to be watching, since the cell doors weren't open yet. "What? You just gonna stare out there all day?" Matt asked, laughing. I turned around and looked at him. I smiled over at him. It took me a few minutes before I realized how off the lighting was. When I did, I realized it was a dream and that I wasn't really talking to one of my closest friends in Furnace. Which was, of course, impossible since Matt had been taken in the Blood Watch.

"Are you just going to haunt me anymore, Matt?" I asked him, eyeing the cell around us. Everything looked real, except for the lighting. If the lighting looked a hint more realistic, I would've though that the dream was real. That Matt was back alive. Unfortunately though, that wasn't the truth. Matt wasn't back, and never would be back.

"I'm here for a reason, honestly." Matt said, standing up and walking around the cell. I watched him as he did.

"What's the reason?" I asked, leaning back against the cell door.

"Well, see, you aren't going to like the reason at all." He stated, staring over at me. For the first time in the dream, I noticed his silver eyes. The same silver as the blacksuits had.

I looked around for a second before looking back at Matt, only Matt wasn't in front of me anymore. There was now a hellhound in front of me. Only it was twice the size of the normal hellhounds that were around Furnace, that Trey, John, and I had ran from already in our stay in Furnace. I heard my cell door creep open, and I took off running out of the cell, I heard the hellhound Matt behind me every step of the way down the stairs to the prison yard. I wasn't sure where I was running to, only that I needed to get away. I saw John running from a similar hellhound, same size and all. We both kept running away from the hellhounds as long as we could. I saw John get caught by the hellhound that I had a feeling was Trey. I watched as John got ripped apart the same way that Hayden had in a dream of mine. All of the sudden, I felt claws ripping at my back, I let out a scream. Then I felt huge jaw's around my head.

Everything went black after that.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine:

I shot up on the bottom bunk and looked around. No hellhounds, no dead people, no nothing out of the usual. Thankfully. I slowly stood up, wincing at the movement. A day after a gang fight really had left me sore as hell. I walked over to the cell door and looked out. Everything looked normal, which it was hard to think of a place like Furnace being "Normal", but compared to dreams of dead people and hellhounds trying to kill you, Furnace was normal as heck.

After the cell doors opened, I walked out and slowly walked down the flights of stairs to the prison yard. When I finally got there, my back and ribs were killing me. I looked around to try and see if I saw any of my group of friends. I spotted Stephan and Alexander hurrying over to where I was standing.

"Wow, dude, are you okay? You look... horrible." Stephan said, while Alexander nodded in agreeement.

I nodded and tried to smile, although based on Alexander and Stephans concerned looks, it probably turned into a grimace. One by one, John, Tyler, Quint, Mohammad, Jack, Hayden, and Will showed up. After a few minutes, we went to the trough room and ate breakfast. After breakfast, I went out and checked the job list for work duty, only to let out a sigh when I saw I was on chipping duty. I walked across the prison yard toward the chipping rooms, and was standing there when I was shoved out of the way by Christopher Court, one of the Skulls who had been in the skirmish the day before.

"Whats up, shithead?" He said laughing. "You got off easy yesterday. If I was running that show instead of Jose, you would've been Skull meat. You would've bled out on that gym floor, you worthless idiot. You'll be dead within a month, if it's up to me."

I slowly walked into the chipping room after grabbing a pick and a hard hat. I stationed myself next to the door, and looked at the wall. I let out a breath before swinging my pick at the wall. It hit the wall with a force that rattled every bone in my body, which definitely added to the pain in my back, neck, and ribs. I ended up in practically a robotic mode after a few hits on the wall, praying for work duty to end.

When it finally did, I made my way out of the room, threw my pick and helmet onto the shelf, and headed to the shower rooms. I showered and got into my new uniform before walking out and toward the trough room. I walked into the trough room, grabbed a tray of food, and sat down at my usual table. I started eating my food. Everything felt like it was just so robotic, like I wasn't controlling it, like someone else was using the controlls and just doing everything for me. Like I was just there, and not even doing anything really. I saw John sit down in the seat across the table from me. The rest of our group eventually ended up somewhere at our table, with Stephan and Alexander sitting on either side of me. I didn't try to get into a conversation with anyone, not today. I was too beat up to try to talk to anyone. I just didn't feel like even attempting that. After lunch, came a long time of sitting in the prison yard, getting glared at by the Skulls and watching Alexander, Tyler, Mohammad, and Stephan play cards. While, I just mainly sat there and listened to everyone laughing about their game of cards. A couple of times the youngest kids of the prison, who were all between the ages of 9 and 11, would run by our table in a game of tag. They always managed to make sure that they stayed away from the older inmates, and definitely the gangs of the prison. I found myself watching their game of tag more than I was paying attention to my group of friends. They were all young, they could've had regular lives. They could of done something with their lives. Instead they were all stuck in this hellhole for more than likely the rest of their lives. I made a mental note that if we all got out to go to a police station, file a report or something. Do something about this prison. If we got out.

After a few minutes, a noise from the elevator shaft stopped everyone from doing anything at all. I saw Kobe, Randy, Christopher, and a couple other Skulls smirk and walk toward the elevator. We all shuffled toward the yellow circle in the middle of the prison yard. After a few seconds, the elevator door opened, to reveal four new inmates. They all looked roughly my age. I looked over and noticed that Hayden was next to me. "Looks like they're going to get the same introduction to Furnace. Hope none of them get a Skull for a cellmate." Hayden mumbled to me, eyeing the new inmates. They all had exited the elevator and were getting introduced to some of the worst Skulls. I looked over and saw Jose, the Skull who was making a break out of the prison with us, standing there and looking at the Skulls who were giving the new inmates a hard time about being "Skull Property". I looked away from the scene as soon as the siren yelled out. The vault door opened, letting out the same welcoming party that always came out. The Wardan gave the same old speech, which I stopped listening to in the middle of it. I was surprised when I heard my name called out as the cellmate of one of the new inmates. I snapped my head up and looked around, to find a guy looking around for an inmate to step forward.

"I said, Seth Slade!" The Warden called out, looking over at us. I quickly stepped forward and nodded at my new cellmate. I made a deal with myself that I'd take the bottom bunk, the one that had belonged to Matt. I didn't want to picture having a new cellmate, it seemed as if he was here to take Matt's place. But one look at him and I knew he'd be nothing close to Matt. He looked roughly how tall Trey had been, 5ft10, with light brown hair and dark brown eyes. He walked over to where I was standing. I figured that it'd be safer having a cellmate. Less chance that the wheezers'll take me. I should be happy about the new cellmate, cause the last thing I want to have happen is me getting taken in a blood watch. After the warden got done with his speech and went back into the vault door, I introduced myself to my new cellmate and led him up the flights of stairs to our cell. I sat down on the bottom bunk and looked at him.

"I'll move my stuff down from the top bunk later." I said. My new cellmate just nodded and looked around. I figured that I must of looked the same way when I first arrived at Furnace. I probably looked scared to death just as my new cellmate did. Tyler and Mohammad walked into the cell and looked at me before looking at my new cellmate.

"Whats your name?" Tyler asked after a few seconds of silence. Oh right, I hadn't even asked for my cellmates name. Jeez, was I slow or what today?

"My names Josiah Jetter." My new cellmate said. I nodded, and Tyler and Mohammad just stood there looking like they wanted an excuse to go and do something. I stood up from the bed and looked at Josiah.

"Want to go downstairs? We can all hang out, you can meet the other guys. Then it should be dinner soon." I asked him. Figuring that that would at least give us all something to do without dying of boredom, although dying from boredom would definitely be something to do. Josiah nodded and we all headed downstairs.

On the way downstairs, John, Hayden, and Quint caught up with us. They all introduced themselves to Josiah and walked down in front of me.

"Heard that a Skull already red-handed one of the new guys." Hayden stated, looking back at me. "Jose said it'd be a big fight in the gym tonight, said we could come if we wanted to. Said that that would be one of the safest places to talk about plans."

I nodded. I had known we would need to discuss our escape plans.

"Sounds like a good idea." I said, looking around at my small group of friends. "How about we all go tonight? The rest of the Skulls will be busy watching the fight, we could talk to Jose, and then get out of there whenever we want to."

Everyone nodded. And it was decided just like that, that we'd be going to a Skirmish.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter Ten:

Skirmish's never fail to amaze me. The fact that the guards and Warden allow them, mainly. But the fact that everything can just end within a second's notice. Especially if someone in charge demands that it ends. In a Skirmish that we had caught the last few seconds of, one of the guys in charge in the Gang demanded that they let the guy go, that he had had enough beating for the day. Everything just ended. The kid was lifted off the ground and taken out of the gym by his friends.

Unfortunately for the new fish that had been red handed when he was just in the latest group of new inmates, Christopher and a few other Skulls were giving him a hard time. It didn't appear that anyone was going to call off the fight early. I just figured it was good that the one they were beating halfway to his death wasn't my new cellmate. I didn't want to have to get involved in the Skirmish, but I figured I'd have to if it had been the cellmate that I had to get. I sat in the gym and watched the Skirmish happen. None of the Guards seemed worried, yet they seemed to know where everyone was going. I wondered what would happen if someone was to die in here. Would they even bother to clean up the place? Send the body back to his family? No, probably not. They'd just let a couple of their dogs loose in here. I looked over at John who was sitting beside me. He watched the Skirmish and didn't take his eyes away from the action. Did he even deserve to be in Furnace? If anyone did, it was him who did. Didn't he say on the first day that we were in here that he actually did do the crime they had charged him for? I looked away from him and looked at the ring. It seemed to be filled with blood from the new inmate now. Nothing of the idea of a Skirmish was fair in my view. But nothing could stop the fights from taking place. Unless everyone got out.

I shook my head and tried to force myself from the subject of escape. It was never going to happen. We were doomed to life here in Furnace. Everyone on the outside thought we were guilty of the crimes we supposedly did, which maybe some of us were. But I definitely wasn't. I didn't do anything to end up in this hellhole. I switched my eyes from the fight to the floor in front of me. The floor had a red tone to it, I wondered if it was originally that way or if the blood that had been from the fights caused the floor to turn to that color. Probably blood. Raising my eyes, I noticed that the new guy was now laying limply on the floor of the ring. Christopher and Randy raised him up and dragged him to the door of the gym. The Skull Guards outside of the room opened the doors and the new inmate was thrown out onto the floor of the rest of the prison. I heard yells coming from the other prisoners at the guy laying on the ground. Christopher walked by us and spit onto the ground at John's feet.

"As far as I'm concerned, you're next, Alien boy." He stated as he continued walking. John went to stand up, but Mohammad and I grabbed onto his arms and yanked him back down into his seat. Jose stood up from his seat across the gym and walked over.

"Enjoy the fight?" He asked, grinning at us all. John nodded.

"Definitely, maybe I could get myself a piece of the action soon, eh?" John suggested. Jose let out a laugh.

"Only if you're looking to get killed kid." Jose said. John nodded and shrugged slightly. "So, how're we gonna get outta here?"

"Look, all we gotta do is get into the elevator. We'll get a free ride up and then we'll just have to figure out a way from there." Will said.

"No, I told you, we aren't doing that plan. We're going to have to figure out a way around the guards and into the chipping rooms. If we can pick through a wall, we might be able to get out." Jack said slowly.

"Pick our way through a wall? You stupid?" Jose asked shaking his head.

"Okay, so how about you all leave the planning to me and Will?" Jack offered. Everyone nodded. I stood up and walked out of the gym, I heard footsteps behind me but I didn't bother looking to see who it was until I was outside. I looked back at Alexander, Stephan, and John. I shook my head at them and started heading up to my cell. Josiah was already inside the cell when I got there. He nodded at me and I returned the nod.

"How was the fight?" He asked after a few seconds. I shrugged.

"It was a fight. One of the kid's who came down with you was in it. Got beat halfway to death. Looked nothing like he use to when he got out of the gym." I explained. Josiah nodded slowly. He jumped up onto the top bunk and I slid down onto the bottom one. I laid down and closed my eyes. After a while I heard the cells lock and could tell when the lights flicked off. I could definitely tell because that's when I slipped into dreams.

* * *

Not dreams about all of the horrors of Furnace. No, this time the dreams were good. I was outside of Furnace again and back looking like a normal kid. I was at school with Trey and we were hanging with our old group of friends. Everyone was sat around the school lunch table and eating their own lunches. We were all talking about some new video game. I didn't want to wake up from the dream, since it was a nice change from dreaming about being a Wheezer, or a Guard, or having Matt back in the cell with me.

I was only dragged out of the dream by the sound of sirens. I opened my eyes to find blood red lights around the prison. I heard the bed creek as Josiah sat up.

"Lay back down!" I yelled at him. He laid down quickly. "Just stay down and we'll be okay." I looked over at the cell door and watched as the vault door opened up slowly. The Wheezers all filed out of the door followed by a bunch of Guards. I saw that there was a few Guards that I hadn't seen before. Maybe they had done some recruitting. I kept my eyes on the cell door while the Wheezers went off in search for their newest prey or whatever you wanted to call what they were doing. I moved my gaze from the door to the floor as a Wheezer walked by. After a few seconds I heard the collective scream of the Wheezers, meaning they had found themselves some new inmates to take. I sat up on the bed as I saw the guards walking toward the staircases. I wanted to see the new guards. I stood up as a few of the Guards came walking across my flight of cells. I gasped at the sight that I saw. Muscular, silver eyes, but still recognizable. Matt. He was a Guard now. How? I didn't know. But it was him. Same blond color to his hair. Still looked the same, only slightly more muscular, and silver eyes. What had they done to him.

"Matt!" I yelled out at him. His eyes flickered toward me for a brief second before he continued to walk on down the walk-way. "Matt! It's me! Seth! Seth Slade! Come on!" I heard more footsteps coming up the stairs and I glanced over as more Guards came rushing up the steps. The cell door in front of me slid open after a second. Matt, the Guard, swung a fist into my cell. The fist connected with my face and I fell backwards. I landed on the cell floor and instantly everything went black.

* * *

I woke up a long time later. I looked around, only to find myself in a small room. The room was sectioned off by curtains. I let out a moan and sat up slightly. There was a faint sound of beeps coming from what must of been across whatever large room I was in. I laid my head back against the bed. I heard a curtain pull back as soon as my eyes closed. After a second of having them closed, I reopened them.

"Hello there, Seth." A cold voice greeted me. I recognized it though. My eyes went searching for the face to the voice. I found him standing across the room with a smirk on his face. "Surprised to see me?" Matt asked.


	11. Chapter 11

I kept my eyes on Matt's face. He stayed exactly where he was across the small from where the bed I was on was. His expression was completely different from the familiar smile I could remember from when he was my cellmate. He looked as if he were an entirely new person, maybe he was. It should have been impossible to have gained so much muscle in the short amount of time that Matt had been gone, eye color doesn't just change either. Maybe it was a different person, but at the same time, no one else could have looked enough like Matt to pass as him.

"I was wondering when you were going to wake up, or if you actually were." Matt said, the unconcerned tone staying with his words. "You shouldn't have recognized me. Even if you did, you should have kept your mouth shut." He walked closer to the bed, dropping his voice to a mumble. "You were suppose to get out of here."

"Forget what I said when they took you? I wasn't leaving here without you and Trey." I replied, muttering the words.

Matt shook his head, glaring at me. "Idiot." He said. "There's no way for Trey and I out of here now. We aren't even suppose to remember our names, our lives, nothing. You all should have left by now. Shouldn't still be here."

"Come on, we can all get out of here. You all can help us now."

"Seth, only the guys still up there are safe now. Not even you can leave now." He muttered. "You shouldn't have noticed me. You have to become one of us now. There's no other option anymore. The Warden won't let you go back up there, that'd be against everything he's for. You'd tell people up there about what you've seen down here. About me being one of the guards now. I wish it didn't have to be this way, really Seth. I really do wish that you hadn't of noticed me, hadn't of made it clear to every Wheezer and guard out there that you knew who I was."

"What are you even talking about?" I asked. Matt looked as if he was going to answer when the curtain got pulled back, revealing a Wheezer and the Warden. Two other blacksuits were outside of the door.

"Ah, he's awake now." The Warden said, looking over at Matt. "You should have told me, my son."

"I was going to, sir." Matt replied, looking away from me to look at the Warden. The Warden walked over to an IV bag that held black liquid speckled with golden flakes.

"Good. He isn't rejecting the nectar. He'll be ready for the first surgery soon enough at this rate." The Warden said, glancing back at the Wheezer. "Can you go ahead and get your operating room ready for whenever he's ready?"

The Weezer nodded before walking out of the door. The guards giving him a lot of room to walk. In fact, the guards acted as if they didn't want to be anywhere near the Wheezer. But what worried me more than how the guards acted around the Wheezer was what the Warden had called the black liquid, that the Warden had mentioned surgery. I knew good and well that I didn't need surgery of any sort.

The Warden glanced over at Matt and nodded. Matt slowly walked out of the room, the other two guards following him away from the door. The Warden stayed where he was though, keeping his eyes on me.

"You'll soon be one of my sons, Seth. You'll be welcomed into the family greatly, you won't need your name anymore, or any of those memories. The nectar, it will make you greater. You'll be able to have revenge on whoever you want revenge on. You'll be able to do anything to get your revenge on the people who wronged you." The Warden said, a smirk creeping onto his face. "You'll be greater as one of the guards, as one of the family. Sweet dreams for now though, son." He said, pushing a few buttons on one of the machines beside the bed and walking out of the room.

Faster than I could imagine it possibly happening, my eyelids were dropping over my eyes. The entire world going black.

* * *

I woke up to being moved down a hallway. I glanced around, trying to make sense of where I was. There was rock on either side of me, so I knew I was still down in the prison. I just didn't know where in the prison. My hands and legs were tied down to the bed.

There were four blacksuit's around the bed, as it was being pushed down the hallway. Two that I didn't recognize beside the side where my head was laying, the other two I recognized instantly. Trey and Matt kept looking straight ahead of wherever we were going.

One of the two blacksuit's I didn't know glanced down at me and smirked. "Soon, you'll be one of us. You just have to make it through a few tests, so to say." He said, nodding.

I ignored his words as they turned the bed into a room filled with Wheezer's. The blacksuit's looked resistant to leave me there in the room filled with Wheezer's, but slowly they left the room and I was left alone with the Wheezer's, the freaks in gas masks.

One of them moved a mask over my mouth, strapping it around my face. The last thing I saw before everything once again went black was all of the Wheezer's standing around the bed looking down at me.


	12. Chapter 12

When I woke up from that first surgery, I couldn't even tell where I was until I felt the fire of pain that my chest and arms were practically radiating off of me. I glanced down to find bandages wrapping my arms up tightly, the same with my chest. It felt as if my upper-body was on fire and there was nothing I could do to escape the flames from underneath the bandages.

Within minutes of me waking up an unfamiliar blacksuit walked through the curtain. He smirked at me before walking out of the room. I could heard a few people talking outside of the curtained room I was in, and maybe the wheezing of a wheezer, or maybe it was another patient.

After a while of being alone again, the Warden walked into the room, a smile on his face as he looked at me.

"You took to the surgery well." The Warden said. "You'll be one of Furnace's Soldier's soon enough. As soon as he had finished the sentence, he glanced at the bag of nectar beside my bed again before disappearing out of the curtained off room.

* * *

After that, more surgeries followed, turning me into something completely different. I was no longer that stupid little naive boy who had been sent down into Furnace for a crime he didn't commit. No, I was a monster now. A beast. Almost unrecognizable. With more nectar being pumped into my system, Seth Slade, the boy I was, started to slip away. Until there simply was no more memories of the life that Seth Slade had had before prison. None of that mattered to me anymore. I was simply a soldier of Furnace. Meant only to do what was right by guarding the prison, by helping Warden Cross, and by helping Furnace himself.

They set me in a room, with pins to my eyes. I watched hours and hours of footage of how over-time throughout history it had always been Predator and Prey. I use to be one of the prey, when the world outside of the walls of the prison had locked me away for something I hadn't done. Now I was more on the predator side of that spectrum. Now I was going to make everyone who had done me wrong in the past pay. Just like Warden Cross promised.


	13. Chapter 13

Within a few days after the final time of being in the room with the reel of clips, I woke up in a different room with no knowledge of how I got there. Water was dripping down from the ceiling and it was continuing to drop onto my head every few seconds. After a couple of minutes the dripping turned into a constant stream of water coming down from the ceiling. I glanced around the room and up at the ceiling. The chains around my wrists were attached to the hatch on the ceiling that the water was leaking from. I stepped back a few steps and the chains strained against the hatch.

I took off running forward as hard as I could and the chains snapped, yanking the hatch off of the ceiling and sending me flying forward toward the rock wall across. I landed on the floor just as the river of water now pouring through the ceiling hit the floor with a loud splash. I shot up off of the floor and looked back. There was a ton of water pouring out of the place where the hatch had been and was quickly flowing toward me. I took off running down a narrow passageway and a growl escaped from my throat when I saw that the passageway came to an end.

It didn't make sense that the Warden would make me better, make me a soldier of Furnace only to lock me down in a flooding death chamber. I looked around until I spotted an entrance way up in the ceiling a few feet back. I ran back as far as I could without getting close enough to the water and took off running, jumping up and grabbing a rock that was sticking out from the rest of the wall. The water caught up quickly, and was right beneath me most of my way up the narrow opening in the ceiling.

I pulled myself up and out of the hole and the water stopped at the edge of the hole. I stood up and was jumped on instantly by something that didn't weigh very much at all. I shook it off and it hit the floor a few feet away. I looked at it and noticed that it had silver eyes that matched the blacksuits eyes. No, not blacksuits, the soldiers of Furnace. Though this _thing_ was not a soldier. Not as good as me and the rest of the soldiers were. Not near as good.

The thing sprung at me again and I batted it away with my hand, sending it into the wall. I caught it before it hit the ground, holding it against my chest as I twisted it's neck until I heard the bones snap. I threw it to the ground and spun around, trying to see if anything else was hiding in the darkness of the room. I spotted three other things, two that looked like the animal I had just killed and one that didn't. The odd one out was chained up to the wall, kicking at the two other animals that had taken interest in him. I walked closer to them, and as soon as the animals heard me, they spun around. One of them launched itself at me. Catching it out of mid-air, I threw it as hard as I could across the dark room. It hit the wall with a thud and collapsed to the floor. The last animal backed away from me, but I quickly snatched it up. Twisting its head quickly until the same snap that came from the first animals neck came from this ones.

The thing chained to the wall stared open-mouthed at me throughout the entire fight with the two animals that had been near it. I walked toward the thing and it kicked out it's foot at me. "Seth Slade? God, what have they done to you? Jesus Christ!" It said, continuing to kick at me. I grabbed its leg and bent it upwards, the thing screaming as soon as the fragile bone broke. A perfect example of why the soldiers like me were better than the pathetic bones of this thing.

I tore the thing off of the wall, the chains breaking easily under my strength. The thing twisted in my arms, trying as much as it good to get away. A voice in the back of my head struggled to get to the front of my head as I held the pathetic weak thing in my arms. _Stop, you know him. It's Will, don't you remember him at all? Or anything from up in Gen Pop? He was going to help you get out of Furnace, along with John, Jack, Tyler, Mohammad, and the others. Come on, don't do this! _I twisted his head, cutting off the voice in my head and his mumbled begging. I dropped him to the ground, his eyes finding me before the light faded from them.

"Seth..." He mumbled, before the light completely faded from his eyes.

Even though the test ended as soon as my knees hit the ground after killing the weak person, the names didn't leave my head for a long time. _Seth, John, Jack, Will, Mohammad, Tyler._ The names sounded familiar even though they shouldn't have. Those names, the people they belonged to, they didn't matter anymore. Nothing from my past life mattered anymore. Nothing at all. The only thing that mattered was protecting Alfred Furnace and Warden Cross now.

Blacksuits streamed into the rock room, two of them dragging me up off of the ground while the others carted off the four bodies laying around the room. The blacksuits carrying me had grins on their faces.

"You're one of us now. One of the true soldiers of Furnace, one of the few people that matter out of everyone in the world." One said, while they were halfway dragging me down a hallway. We went straight into a room full of beds, they dropped me down onto one and after a few minutes, the Warden walked up.

"Welcome to Furnace Prison, the other side of it at least. You're one of my sons now, nothing can touch you now." Warden Cross said, grabbing an IV and plucking it into my arm. "Don't worry, it's just Nectar. You'll be hooked up to it every night. It'll keep you alive. You'll start working shifts tomorrow. Rest for now." He walked away after a second and my eyelids dropped shut a second after he did.

* * *

The next few weeks went by without any change. I helped out in Gen Pop and in the Infirmary. Usually I was on the same shift with two soldiers who I remember having led me to the screening room before I fully became one of them. I didn't remember the names I knew them as back then, but names didn't matter when you were a soldier of Furnace. Though names were all I could think about since the test I had in those rooms. Names came to the front of my mind a lot during my shifts as a soldier, I didn't pay them much attention, just swatted them away, like they were bugs. They didn't really matter. Names didn't matter at all when it came to Furnace Prison.

In fact, the names drifted away after a while. That is until I entered a makeshift room in the infirmary which held a familiar face, that I didn't know why I knew. It was just a small inmate. Probably one of the smaller ones in the Prison, though he didn't look like a new kid. A name fought to the front of my mind again as I stared at the kid with the brown hair. _John Palin._

The kid looked up at me after I had stood there for a few minutes. "Seth? Is that you?" He asked weakly.

"John..." The name slipping from my mouth before I could stop it.


	14. Chapter 14

The kid's eyes lit up as soon as the name had slipped out of my mouth. He sat up some, all the while keeping his eyes locked on me. I was getting ready to walk back out of the small room when he finally spoke up.

"Hey, Seth. What is this stuff they're pumping into me? I've been in here for a few days while they've had me hooked up to this thing." John asked. I shook my head.

"I shouldn't be here. Okay? I don't know you. I'm not this Seth you're talking about. I just knew your name from the file about you." I replied, trying to get out of the situation as quickly as I could.

"That's bullshit and you know it. But, do whatever you have to do, Seth. I've already talked to Matt and Trey." The kid said, shrugging. I quickly walked out of the room, continuing to exit the infirmary. I walked until I found a deserted hallway, one that I didn't really recognize but knew I could find my way back from.

I didn't know the kid, not really. I didn't remember anything from my time in the prison before the nectar started. I just knew the name, and that was mainly due to that test that the Warden put me through. Maybe he even put the names in my head, some sort of final test to see if the names would make me not kill that pathetically weak kid. To see if it'd break me, which it didn't. Not at all.

I heard footsteps coming down the hallway that I was in, and I snapped my head around. I saw the familiar blonde haired soldier walking towards me.

"Hey, what are you doing out here? Aren't you suppose to be in the infirmary?" He asked, raising an eyebrow. _He's Matt. He was your cellmate back up in Gen Pop. You know him, even if you'd rather not admit it._ I shut out the notion of knowing this fellow soldier as Matt in some past-time and shook my head.

"Some prisoner in there thought I was someone else." I replied, shrugging. The other soldier nodded.

"The John kid? Yeah, I talked to him last night." He replied. "They're keeping him there, the nectar hasn't affected him at all. Warden's going to let the Wheezers cut him up soon."

"He said he talked to you." I said, looking at him. "He called me Seth or something." I shrugged, trying to make it seem as if I didn't really care whether or not the kid thought I was someone else.

The other soldier nodded. "You are Seth, you know. Or well you used to be. Just like I used to be Matt. Those names don't mean anything to you anymore, do they? I can see why they wouldn't. They pumped you full of nectar; the most nectar I've seen anyone endure here." He said. "The names shouldn't mean anything to me either, but they still do. I hide it from the Warden."

I shut my eyes, trying to fight off the names that I knew so well yet didn't know at all. But the memories came anyway.

* * *

_"Made a mistake, tough boy." Randy mumbled into my ear. I closed my eyes, waiting to feel the slice of the knife against my throat, w__hen instead I felt Randy's arm that was on my neck get yanked away from my neck. _

_I ran with them, trying to keep up as much as possible. I heard a ton of hits coming up the stairs behind us, and I made the mistake of glancing behind us. I saw two giant hounds running up behind us. Trey and John looked back too. The dogs were too close, we tried speeding up, but the dogs just kept speeding up too. One of the dogs grabbed John by the leg and dragged him down some of the stairs. Trey and I instantly stopped and grabbed John's arms. John was screaming and kicking at the dogs head to no avail. I flung my leg out, catching the dog right in the eye and luckily it let go of its hold on John's leg. Trey and I practically dragged and carried John up the rest of the flights of stairs to their cell. We all scrambled in and then the cell shut right as the dogs were getting to the cell. John was holding onto his leg where the dog bit him. The dogs tried to break the cell door by hitting it. After a few minutes, some guards showed up and carted the dogs off. A couple more guards came and opened up the cell door._

_"You." Said one guard pointing right at me. "Come with us." I slowly got up not really paying attention and made my way to the door. The guards grabbed me by my arms and led me down the stairs to the yard. I knew I had just had it, they were going to finish me off, feed me to the dogs, something. Something horrible._

_"You're alive." Matt said after a few seconds. "I thought you had gotten killed. I told Quint that we needed to go back for you, but he kept dragging me toward the cells. I'm sorry." I thought the blacksuits were going to kill me as soon as they found me in Trey and John's cell._

* * *

The names that had haunted me since the test weren't only names anymore, now they had faces to go with them. Trey, the other guard that had looked familiar. Matt, the one I was talking to now. John, that kid in the infirmary. Randy, the gang member who had wanted to kill me so desperately. Quint, Matt's younger brother who didn't like me much, but liked me enough to keep me around when Matt got taken by the Wheezers. I looked back at Matt.

"I'm not letting them get their hands on John just cause the nectar didn't affect him. They want to find out why it didn't, and they want to make sure that they don't pick any other kids that the nectar won't affect. It's just wrong." Matt said. "I'm trying to figure out how to get him out of here, maybe with a few of the other guys in the Prison. I know you probably don't remember the guys we hung out with, but Seth, you can come with us out of this hellhole too."

I shook my head. "No." I said, glaring at him. "No, you're wrong. I'm not this Seth, and you're not some Matt. That kid got into your head and convinced you of this. Just drop me out of your little plan." I walked off back toward the infirmary, shaking my head and trying to block those names out of my head again. It was just some test, some trick to try to get me to admit that I wasn't tough or something. It wasn't going to work.


	15. Chapter 15

I avoided the other guard after that, I couldn't think that I was some kid named Seth who was in the Prison for some crime that I couldn't even remember now. Surely it was some test placed there by the Warden to see how I'd handle it. I wonder how I handled it in his opinion. I tried taking the shifts I knew the other guard didn't take. Guarding the mining area that the prisoners chipped in and guarding the solitary area of the Prison. It worked, the other guard that had told me all of that stuff didn't take those shifts.

Only trouble I had was when I was asleep at nights, even with the nectar hooked up the dreams came, and none of them were really that great. All of them had to do with the lies that that other guard and the kid had told me. They shouldn't have meant anything to me, but yet they did. They meant more to me than anything the Warden told me while he was showing me around the prison.

* * *

_I watched from behind the door of a prison cell, I didn't know why I was back here, but yet I was. I couldn't stop what I saw going on in front of my face. The Warden's hellhounds were tearing a boy apart right in front of my own face, and there was nothing I could do to stop them. I tried yelling at them, but they kept on their attack not even acknowledging my voice. I kept yelling as they ripped off his arm, the boy screaming as they did this._

_The kid rolled to where he was facing me, and I saw who it was for the first time. It was that kid from the infirmary. John Palin. He was getting killed in front of my face and there was nothing I could do to stop the hellhounds from their little game of ripping him to pieces. The howl that came from his mouth as the hellhound pounced onto his back and sunk his teeth into his neck was horrible sounding. I kicked and hit my fists against the cell door but it held shut, keeping me from even trying to help John._

_His leg was next, one of the hellhounds sent it flying to the rest of the group of hellhounds. The rest of the hellhounds fought over the leg until it got ripped apart too, each hellhound trying to get a little piece of the body part. A piece of the kid laying there on the floor, screaming for someone to help him. No one else in the prison seemed to care about the kid except me, and I couldn't get out of the cell to help him out at all. He was utterly on his own, left to the animals will. Whatever they wanted to do to him was what was going to happen to him._

_He tried crawling away while the hellhounds were fighting with each other over who got to attack him next, but without a couple limbs he didn't get very far away before they were back on the attack. One of the hellhounds kept him pinned to the floor of the prison while the others ripped away at him._

_The hellhounds continued their attack, ripping him to pieces. When they were finished and the screams had stopped, one of the hellhounds looked at me and showed it's teeth, growling lowly as I kept looking at it. The eyes of the hellhound looked familiar, and it only took me seconds to realize that I'd seen the eyes of the this hellhound every time I looked at a picture of myself or looked in a mirror when I was back out in the real world. Before Furnace._

* * *

As soon as the dream ended, I shot up out of the bed that I was laying on in the Guards room. I stood up slowly, disconnecting myself from the flow of nectar. I got dressed in a new suit and walked out of the room. I walked straight to the infirmary, not stopping for any other guard.

I found the room in the infirmary that I was looking for easy enough and entered it. There was two guards on either side of the room and the kid on the bed was still in one piece, definitely unlike the dream version of him where the hellhounds had made him unrecognizable.

They all looked over at me as soon as I walked into the room.

"What do you want?" The blonde haired guard said. "I thought you didn't think we were telling the truth about who we are."

"I want out of this place. No matter what or who I think is telling the truth." I replied, looking at them all.


	16. Chapter 16

I spent a week walking around the undergrounds of Furnace with Matt and Trey. They showed me where Warden Cross kept some of the more interesting subjects. They called them the berserkers, a term I had overheard one of the other guards say a few days before I finally got to see the area.

They were kept in cells, much like the ones up where the inmates were. Except the cells looked like they were built specifically for the job of holding back the berserkers and the hellhounds. Mixed in with them were some other unlucky people, a few of the animals that had attacked me in the test which Matt and Trey called "Rats", and in a cage between two hellhounds was a broken body. Only one eye silver and one arm muslced up, the rest of the body looked like a normal persons body. He looked older than the inmates up in Gen Pop, and Trey shook his head at the sight of the body laying there dead.

"It's an adult, Warden Cross knows the nectar doesn't work on them. But yet he still tries every once in a while. This is his latest test." Matt said, motioning to the body in the cage. "Probably become a meal for some of the hellhounds soon." He kept walking forward, Trey followed him after a second. I followed behind them both. Matt stopped up ahead of me as soon as a loud growl split through the air.

Two blacksuits were up ahead poking electrified metal poles through the bars of a cell that was out of sight. One of the suits looked at us and shot Trey an envious look.

"Can we help you all?" He asked, sticking his metal pole back through the bars. A howl split through the air again seconds later.

"We were just showing this newer soldier around. You all got stuck with changing the nectar bags in that berserkers cage?" Trey asked, walking closer. Matt followed a few feet behind Trey. I hesitantly went ahead to see what was in the cage.

The monster inside the cell filled the cell completely. It wouldn't be recognized as having once been human at all. I wasn't even sure it had been human at one point. It was more like a killing machine than anything else. I glanced back to where Trey and Matt had been standing and only saw Trey now. Matt had managed to slip out of the room without me noticing.

"Time to get the hell out of here, Trey?" The light brown haired guard said. The other guard looked over at him. A look of understanding filling his eyes. Trey nodded. The guard that had spoken took his metal pole out of the cell and stuck it against the other guards back. The second guard instantly fell to the floor. Seconds later, the lights in the Prison switched off.

"Seth, this is Daniel. Another guard who remembered everything about his time in the Prison, he's getting out of here with us." Trey explained quietly and quickly.

"Get out of here, things are about to get more chaotic." Daniel said. Trey took off walking and I followed him, my eyes adjusting to the darkness that had enveloped the Prison. Trey yanked me behind a row of cells as soon as I heard a cage door open up. Foot falls that could have shook the whole room of cells. The hellhounds all started up in barks and growls, obviously seeing the thing that had been released. I heard more cell doors open and more heavy footfalls hitting the floor. Once the footfalls were in the distance, Trey stood back up and I followed his lead out from behind the cells. The other guard was standing there grinning.

"They'll never know what hit them." Daniel said, looking at Trey and I.

"We got to get up to Gen Pop and meet Matt and John up there." Trey replied, looking off to where the berserkers had gone out the door. There was rocks disgarded on the floor from where they hit the walls, crushing them, on their way out. Daniel and Trey took off walking and I followed them. Daniel still had his electrified pole and Trey grabbed the other guard's from off the floor.

"They're getting people out of the cells right?" Daniel asked.

Trey nodded. "Soon all of the inmates will be released from their cells. The Warden will have no clue whats going on."

We sped up after passing a few offices that were put into the walls of the Prison. When we got the infirmary we saw the Warden.

"You all caused this didn't you?" He asked, motioning for guards to block our way. "You all are going to pay, you aren't going to make it out of here, or anywhere else in this place, alive. Kill the-"

The Warden was cut off by loud footsteps. Trey glanced back and then yelled for us to get down right before all of the berserkers got there. I didn't know where they had gone that they didn't get here until after we did. But I was glad to see them. They made short work of the Warden and blacksuits and went the rest of the way into the infirmary. We got up off of the ground and hurried to where the vault door opened up in Gen Pop. John looked over at us from the control panel and smiled at us.

"Ready to get the hell outta here?" He asked, turning his attention back to the control panel. The doors slowly opened and we all ran through before they could close. The Prison was in a state of chaos, the cell doors were all opened and the inmates were everywhere. Some of the Skull Gang members were lighting some sheets from some of the cells on fire in the middle of the Prison yard.

I saw three faces I recognized standing over near the elevator. It looked like they had guns in their hands and that's when I noticed that the guards from up in Gen Pop were laying knocked out over in the corner. I smirked and hurried across the Prison Yard to get to where Tyler, Quint, and Mohammad were all standing.

"Well you look different." Mohammad said, a grin on his face. Tyler laughed and Quint let a smile slip up onto his face.

"I'm glad that you, Matt, and Trey are alright." Quint said, nodding. Just then we all heard the elevator make a noise.

"They're coming!" Tyler yelled out. Matt, Daniel, and Trey hurried over to where I stood with Tyler, Mohammad, and Quint. Trey handed me a gun.

"Aim at whatever comes out of that thing." He mumbled, getting ready. We were all ready as soon as the elevator opened to reveal four blacksuits. We made quick work of them, throwing them over to where the other guards were laying and taking their guns. Trey and Daniel handed out the guns to a few Skull members, I recognized one as Kobe.

"Listen people, we're going to send up a first group to climb up the elevator rope once they get up there, they'll operate the elevator and get everyone out of here." Trey informed everyone. "Seth, you're going up with the first group, with Kobe, Tyler, Quint, and a few other Skulls. Get up there." He said, gesturing into the elevator. One of the Skulls went in, and when everyone else in the Group was happy with the fact that nothing was going to happen, we all piled in and up onto the elevator. Slowly everyone started climbing up the cord that the elevator was attached to.

It was a hard climb, but I could see everyone else but me was having more trouble with it. I guess the fact that they were human and weighed less didn't really help them any with climbing the wire. When we finally got up it, we all found the controls. Surprisingly there wasn't anymore guards up here, like I had been expecting there to be, I guess they were the ones that were sent down to deal with all of the out of control inmates. Two of the Skulls went to work with the controls.

After a few minutes they had gotten three elevator loads of people up out of Gen Pop. Most of the inmates were leaving as soon as they got up there, but our small group was waiting for the last few members of our group to get up from the Prison. Trey and Daniel were the only two left down there. I had forgotten some names and faces that were in our group due to the Warden's nectar but the memories of them were slowly coming back to me after having seen them. As soon as they emerged from the last elevator full of people we got out of the building. I looked back at our group. There were two young kids at the back of the group beside John, Daniel was leading the way, Trey and Matt were beside me. There was one distinct face missing from the group of people. _Hayden Countell._

"Where's Hayden?" I asked, looking back at John and the two younger kids.

"Ugh, dude... Hayden's dead. He got killed by Randy, who was now the berserker that Daniel first let loose in the room." Trey explained. "Sorry to break it to you. It wasn't really pretty, I figured you didn't remember him, so I didn't bring it up when I saw you again after they changed you into a blacksuit."

I nodded slowly. We kept on our way, Daniel staying quiet until we got streets away from the Prison.

"There's a place near here that I know where we can stay. It use to be a store, and unless they've changed it, it's just empty now. Totally deserted." Daniel said, speeding up. We all followed closely behind him, until he stopped in front of a building. The windows were busted out, so we could get in easily. He led us down into the basement and sat down on a chair that was in the basement. The rest of us all took seats around the basement, most of us sitting on the floor, a few on random furniture pieces that looked like they had been thrown around the room.

I took a seat on the floor and saw that the two younger kids had sat down beside John again on a couch over in the far corner of the room, they were away from Daniel, Trey, Matt, and I. I guess the younger kids didn't trust us all that much considering we were blacksuits.

* * *

_"Guys..." I said quietly._

_"Leave us alone!" Jayson yelled at me, looking downward toward the prison yard. Alexander and Stephan looked at me. They didn't look so sure about this plan of their's. "GET AWAY, SETH!" Jayson shouted even louder. He looked mad, extremely mad. I looked behind me and saw Tyler, Mohammad, and Matt. I turned back to Jayson, Alexander, and Stephan. I couldn't let them jump. I just couldn't._

_"Guys, please don't do this. It's not that bad..." I trailed off._

_"BULLSHIT!" Jayson cried out, looking at me with a kind of hate that I had never seen in any 12 year old kid's eyes. "IT'S AS BAD AS IT CAN GET! IT'S NOT GOING TO GET BETTER! YOU LEFT US! WE GOT TORTURED! You don't know how bad our life is!" He called out, his voice breaking at the end. I turned my eyes away from Jayson and looked at Stephan._

_"Stephan, don't do it. It's not that bad. I can help you. We can help you." I said quietly. "Same goes for you Alexander. We can help both of you. Just don't do it." Stephan nodded slowly._

_"I'm not dying alone!" Jayson called out. Jayson took a hand off of the railing and grabbed onto Stephans shoulder. After a few seconds, Jayson let his other hand go of the railing and put it on Alexanders shoulder. "I'm not dying alone!" He called out again._

_"Don't do it!" I called out. Jayson flipped backwards, pulling Alexander and Stephan off of the edge with him. I ran forward and threw my arms over the railing. I managed to grab onto Stephans arm._

_"Seth!" Stephan let out as a yell. "I'm sorry!" Alexander grabbed onto Stephans waist to try and pull himself up above Jayson._

_"It's alright kid!" I said. "Grab onto the floor, you're the only one keeping you all up right now. I got to get onto the edge."_

_Stephan nodded and let go of my hand, placing his back onto the floor. I quickly jumped over the railing and landed on the edge. I grabbed onto Stephans arm again._

_"Jayson! We can find a way out of here! We don't have to stay in Furnace!" I called out to him. Jayson shook his head._

_"No! There's no way out! Stephan, dont listen to him! There's no way out! Let go!" Jayson yelled._

_"Help me guys!" I yelled at Tyler, Mohammad, and Matt. I heard another set of footsteps, and saw a blond guy I hadn't seen before jump over the railing beside me. He grabbed onto Stephans arm too, and looked at me and nodded._

_"Let go, I got him." He said calmly. I nodded down at Stephan and let go of his arm. I turned back to Matt, Tyler, and Mohammad. "Come on guys!" I yelled at them. They all walked over to the edge. Matt grabbed onto my shoulders, and Tyler slipped over the railing. I saw Mohammad grab onto Tyler and the other guys arms. Tyler reached a hand down toward Alexander, and Alex grabbed onto Tyler's hand. I stuck a foot over the edge of the floor._

_"Last chance!" I yelled down at Jayson. "Grab onto the foot or I'm kicking you." "We can get out! I know a way!" The other guy who came to help yelled down at Jayson._

_"Screw you all!" Jayson yelled at me. I let out a breath and kicked at Jayson's face. My foot met his nose but he held onto Alex and Stephan. "They're coming with me!" He said flinging himself around. I kicked at his face again, this time landing a more solid kick to his nose. His hands came off of Stephan and Alexander and he flew down toward the ground. His scream following him all the way down. Tyler and the guy who came to help us pulled Stephan and Alex up onto the floor. Stephan's arm's instantly wrapped around me._

_"I'm sorry.." He said quietly. I nodded. The other guy jumped over the railing. Tyler, Stephan, Alex, and I all climbed back over the railing. The guy walked ahead of us all._

* * *

Stephan and Alexander stayed sitting beside John for a long time, not really talking to anyone besides each other and John. I kept looking at them, they had been new kids after I got there, I remembered helping them some, and yet here they were acting as if I was just any other blacksuit and not someone who had stopped them from making a mistake and jumping from the railing of that floor.

That hope of getting out of Furnace that I had back when I saved Alexander and Stephan along with the help of some other people had faded as soon as Matt had been taken by the blood watch. When he showed back up as a blacksuit, the hope had faded even further away. But now, now that I was out, the hope was greater than ever. Not only did I have more hope of staying out of Furnace, I also knew that none of this escape would've been possible without me, Trey, and Matt becoming blacksuits. We would've still been stuck our cells.

That hope that we might be able to stay out of the Prison lasted until the sound of sirens in the distance started up.


	17. Chapter 17

The sirens were far enough off that we didn't jump up instantly, but everyone went silent as soon as they started. The people who were on chairs and couches lowered themselves down to the ground and we all slowly moved into the darker corners of the room. There was a little window on one side of the basement, at the very top of the wall, it threw in enough light that we could all see each other if we were in the light. When we got in the darker areas, it was harder to see each other. John, Stephan, Mohammad, and Alexander were in one corner while Quint, Tyler, Trey, Matt, Daniel, and I crowded in the other dark corner.

"I guess Cross called in the cops about the Prisoner outbreak." Daniel mumbled. I glanced back at him and nodded. "No one will believe us about them. Hell it even feels like a dream to me. We're screwed."

Matt shook his head, and I heard one of the younger kids breathing more heavily than they were earlier. All of the drama with Furnace Prison seemed like it had been left behind until the sirens started. This was getting attention, possibly even National attention, and as far as anyone would be concerned we were just a few more escaped inmates. The Warden might even make us out as the ones who started it all, which we were but he'd twist the story. We'd sound like the bad guys instead of him. Of course Daniel was right, no one would believe us.

We sat there for a while before anyone moved or said anything else. When the silence was finally broken, it was Matt to do it. There was more sirens going on outside now, and a while before the silence was broken sirens went by the store. It was only a matter of time before anyone checked here.

"We can't stay in here for long." He said, looking around. "We need to get out of these outfits cause the cops will be looking for people in Prison Uniforms and I wouldn't be surprised if Warden Cross told them that some of the guards turned on him to help the inmates out. We'll be caught instantly."

Daniel stood up. "As soon as it's dark outside, we can leave. We'll be covered more in the darkness and there's a mall close by that we can get some clothes from."

"We're going to steal clothes?" Stephan asked, looking up at Daniel.

"We just broke out of a _Prison_, I think stealing some clothes is the least of your worries right now, kid." Daniel said. He moved one of the chairs to below the window in the basement and stood on it, looking outside. After he was apparently happy with what he had seen or hadn't saw, he got down and sat back down on the floor beside Trey.

We waited a few hours until we were all happy with how dark it looked outside through the small window. We all walked upstairs, stopping on the stairs to listen for anyone upstairs. As soon as we were upstairs, we hurried out front. Daniel took the lead again hurrying down a back alley as soon as he came across one. The mall was about twenty minutes away from where we had spent most of the day at.

Daniel knew exactly where at the mall to get inside at, and I was starting to wonder whether or not he actually deserved being in a Prison - maybe not a Prison like Furnace, but a normal one. I planned on asking Trey what Daniel did, or was accused of doing, when he got sent to Furnace whenever I got the chance to.

After we all got into the mall, Daniel stopped after a few feet in the mall. He looked back at us all and shrugged. "Where to now?" He asked, looking at Stephan and Alexander before looking back at the rest of us.

"We're going to need all new outfits, maybe we can even find a sports store, get a few backpacks and fill them full of clothes and other supplies too. I mean theres ten of us, we can take at least one each of backpacks, if not more. That should be more than enough to do us for a while on food and clothes." Matt said. Daniel nodded.

"We split into groups of five to get as much supplies as we can, after we all find the sports store to get backpacks and other bags." Daniel said, taking off. We all followed him. It took us time to get all the way across the mall which is where the sports store turned out to be, but when we finally got there, we weren't disappointed with what all we got from the place. We all picked up different kinds of bags, some backpacks, some duffle bags. Trey, Matt, Daniel, Quint, Mohammad, Tyler, and I took three bags each, while John, Alexander, and Stephan took two each. We ended up taking twenty seven bags. A good number in Daniel's opinion for getting out with enough supplies to do us for a while until we could break into another mall.

"We split up now." Daniel said. "Five in each group. Mohammad, Stephan, Alexander, and Matt can come with me. Seth, John, Quint, and Tyler can go with you, Trey. So, we meet up in the food court when we're done. Good luck." We all nodded and split off into the groups that Daniel told us to.

The group I was in started at the first clothing store we came across. We all found one outfit each to change into then, and then we started piling up some of our bags with the clothes that fit us. Trey and Quint were standing beside me, and I figured that I could ask Trey about Daniel's past.

"So, how come Daniel knows where to hide out and how to break into this place as easy as he did?" I asked, looking Trey while grabbing a couple of shirts off of the racks. Quint looked at Trey too.

Trey shrugged. "He told Matt and I that he had been stealing cars, taking them for joy rides, and stealing stuff with some of his friends when the blacksuits killed one of his friends and the murder was pinned on him, just like us. He's just better prepared for this stuff than we were. I mean, sure we're close to where we use to live, but this is literally where he did live." He explained, looking at Quint and I. Quint nodded and I did too, going back to paying attention to which clothes I was grabbing off of the shelves.

After we were all done in the clothing store, we stopped by a shoe place, only grabbing two pairs of shoes each since they were more likely to last us longer than the clothes would. Half of our bags were filled by the time we were done with the shoe store. We headed toward the food court, stopping on our way to break into a couple of vending machines, grabbing most of the food out of the machines to stuff into our bags.

When we got to the food court, we quickly jumped over the counters and found the small safes in each little food area, we emptied out the safes and put the money in our bags. After that was done, Quint and Tyler went through the rest of the area near the food court with some of the emptier bags, breaking into the rest of the vending machines they could find and filling the bags with food and the money they got out of the vending machines. Tyler and Quint got back just as the other group of our friends got to the food court.

"How much stuff did you get as far as food goes?" Daniel asked.

"Most of the bags are full with clothes, food, and money." Quint said.

Daniel nodded. "Lets go through another part of the mall, there's this matress store over there, and more vending machines. We can get some more cash and food while we're there and then take some naps until morning."

The walk over to the other part of the mall was silent. None of us made a sound until we got to the matress store, we'd filled up the rest of our bags with food and money by the time we got there, so our only big thing to do at that point was find a bed. Half of us stayed awake while the other half took a nap for a while. It was a mixture of guards from the Prison and inmates in the groups, just to make sure that not all of the guards were asleep while the inmates were awake. The inmates wouldn't stand a chance at fighting off some of Furnace's freaks.

I was in the group opposite of Daniel, so I decided to look through some of their bags to see what all they got. One of the bags that was right beside Daniel on a bed was filled with guns, bullets, and knives. I quickly shut the bag and didn't mention my findings to anyone, I figured that Daniel had to have a reason behind the weapons.

I was in the second group that got to sleep, although my groups sleeping was interrupted quickly by us all being shaken awake.

"Come on! Get up!" Daniel whispered loudly. "The cops are here, we gotta get outta here now!" I sat up instantly and started getting off of the matress. We all grabbed the bags and were leaving the store when Mohammad came running back.

"Shit! It aint just the cops! It's the Army now too!" Mohammad said loudly, taking his bags from Quint and Tyler and getting towards the back of our group. Daniel nodded and took us to a different area of the mall, we walked down an Employee's only tunnel and came out in the parking lot. The cops and Army were near the front doors beside the food court even though some of their cars were still parked near where we came out of the mall at. Daniel smirked and I followed his gaze to an Army truck that looked big enough to fit all ten of us in it, though a couple of us may have to sit on the floor.

He started walking toward it with the rest of us following him. He got in the drivers seat and the rest of us piled in the back, Trey taking the passengers seat. John, Stephan, and Alexander sat with the backs to the drivers and passengers seats in the floor. The rest of us were either in seats or on the floor of the vechicle. Daniel fired up the car and revved it a few times before pushing his foot down on the gas. As soon as he did the car shot forward, and a smirk came across his face.

The car raced down a strip of the parking lot before it swung sharply to the right, heading in the opposite direction of the front of the mall, where the rest of the Army and cops were, I was glad that Daniel hadn't started heading toward where they all were. We headed out of the parking lot and down a side street. I kept glancing out of the window to see where we were heading and after a while, Daniel pulled into a mostly empty parking structure and stopped the vechicle.

"We need to get off of the streets now, and hide for a while. I don't know how long we need to hide for, but we need to hide now." Daniel said, glancing at us all. We all nodded and everything was quiet for a few minutes. Daniel sighed and shook his head. "If you all trust me, I know a few more abandoned buildings around here."

"Cause that worked so well yesterday right?" John asked, shaking his head. Daniel glared back at him and backed the car out of the parking place and took off driving again.


	18. Chapter 18

Daniel ended up taking us to an old warehouse that was empty except for some old air-conditioner parts and the machines that made them according to him. He parked the Army car in an alley close to the warehouse and we walked the rest of the way, taking all of our bags with us. The warehouse was about a fifteen minute walk from the alley and once we got there it didn't take long to get us all into the warehouse. The place was almost completely dark, the only thing keeping it lit up was the broken windows letting in the light that was outside.

Daniel was leading us into the small office when we heard a noise behind us. We all spun around to see three girls and two other guys in the opposite end of the warehouse. The guys both had guns and were staring at us. A smile creeped onto Daniel's face while he looked at them all.

"Guys, it's me, Daniel." He said loud enough for them to hear.

"Daniel? Seriously? What are you doing here?" One of the guys asked.

"I needed somewhere for me and my friends to hide out at." He replied, shrugging.

"It's all over the news. The break-out at Furnace. Why were you in it?" One of the girls with dark brown hair asked.

Daniel shrugged again. "Furnace Prison isn't what they say it is on the news, it's some freak show. I mean, look at me. I wasn't rotting away in that place for the rest of my life." He said, looking at them. The five of them all walked closer to get a better look at us all.

"Why did you come here though? You could've picked anywhere else, and you pick here." The same guy asked again.

"Plus, dude it's not just the break-out now. All hells broken loose in the course of today." The other guy said.

"What are you talking about?" Matt asked. All of them looked at Matt for a split second before looking back at Daniel.

"Theres some real freaks out there now. Kids are dying, or changing, into them. Adults are dying. There's barely any channels on with the news now, just some break-ins every once in a while from the constant static. Just giving updates of the damage done." The guy said.

Daniel looked back at us and then back at his friends. "Guys this is Ivan, Nick, Jenna, Casey, and Hailey. And this is Trey, Matt, Seth, Mohammad, Tyler, Stephan, Alexander, Quint, and John." He said, pointing to each of us when he said a name. Everyone nodded.

"We had to run here when it all started in our neighborhood." Jenna, the dark brown haired girl said. "They got Weston on our way here."

Daniel shook his head. "I'm sorry that this all started."

The war started because of you all. If you hadn't of left, maybe the berserkers wouldn't of been released on everyone and anyone.

The voice being back in my head shocked me. I hadn't heard it since I agreed to get out of Furnace with Matt, Trey, and John. I hadn't thought of the issues that the world would have to deal with if we broke out. A few escaped inmates, yeah. But berserkers and whatever other freaks Warden Cross and Alfred Furnace had? Hadn't thought of that.

"You all hear from Staci or is she…" Daniel trailed off. Jenna, Casey, and Hailey shook their heads. Ivan's face expression turned darker. Nick leaned up against one of the old machines that was in the warehouse.

"She'll be here. I'm sure of it." Ivan said, looking at Daniel. "She leaves further out of the city, it would've taken longer for the beasts to get to her area. Shes fine."

We sat down with Daniels old friends and opened up one of our bags full of food. We all picked out a bag of chips and started eating them. Ivan and Nick looked longinly at all of the money in the bags.

"Too bad moneys not worth anything anymore, now that those freaks are unleashed on everyone." Ivan said, closing up Daniels bag. Nick shook his head.

"Such a shame." Nick said, smirking at Ivan. "Maybe money will come back into use one day, Ivan."

"Shut up, Nick. It may not. I mean you got a look at those monsters out there, it may not come back into use ever again." Ivan said, grinning slightly.

After a while, there was a bang on the opposite side of the warehouse and another dark haired girl walked in. Ivan and Nick shot up off of the floor and waved.

"Yo, Staci, over here! We got company in here." Ivan shouted before remembering what was outside of the safety of the warehouse. Nick winced and laughed. Staci quickly walked over and Daniel dug through his bag until he found a bag of chips and handed them to Staci. She nodded and sat down.

"You got out in the prison escape I take it, Daniel?" Staci asked, smiling at Daniel. He nodded and shrugged.

"It wasn't just some prison, I mean look at us all." Daniel said, laughing quietly and gesturing to the rest of us.

Staci looked around at us all. "So, these are your inmate friends huh?"

Daniel nodded. "Yep, this is my gang." He laughed, and the rest of us laughed too, with knowing what we went through in Furnace.

We were hidden up inside the small office until the light outside turned to darkness, then we moved up to the upper floor where a couple other offices were located. While we had been sitting around talking we could hear animal noises outside, they sounded like Randy as a berserker.

Hell broke loose around midnight when we were all still awake, talking, but in one of the upper offices.


	19. Chapter 19

The danger of the berserkers got closer to the warehouse we were in a few hours after we had moved to the upper floor of the place. Daniel opened up his bag that was full of guns and handed Ivan and Nick each one. Daniel slowly stood up and walked out of the office and to the railing on the small balcony. He glanced down at the floor beneath us, and nodded.

"Come on, we gotta get out of here, all of us. We got the Army vechicle a few streets away, if we can make it there, we can all squeeze into the car and get out of here." Daniel said. All of us from Furnace stood up, Daniel's friends stayed seated.

"We can't just leave here." Nick said, shaking his head. Ivan nodded.

"This is our hometown, Daniel. We aren't exactly like you all. No offense, but it isn't really our war going on out there." Ivan replied, looking over at Staci, Casey, Jenna, and Hailey before looking back at Daniel.

"Look, if you stay here and we go, do you think that those things will just stop and come after us instead of killing you all?" Matt said, looking at them all. "Honestly you'd probably do better off coming with us than staying here. Us leaving isn't going to help you all any."

Ivan shook his head and looked at Daniel, seeming to ignore the rest of us. "Look, Dan, you know that I'd come with you if it seemed like you could help us anymore than us staying here. Your friend here said you all can, but I dont think you can. I mean, we're humans. You all seem to be too, but we're definite humans." He said, shrugging. "What would they want with us?"

"To make you like us, Furnaces freaks. Look, dude, come with us, we can drop you all off at some safer place, somewhere thats not here." Daniel said. Ivan shook his head, and Daniel turned his attention to Nick and the girls. "Look guys, you all know that it'd be safer to come with us. Matt's telling the truth. They aren't just going to stop when we leave. They'll bust down this place and do you like they did Weston. Like they've probably done a ton of people by now."

Nick nodded. "We'll come with you, but as soon as we say we want to leave, you drop us off at the nearest place you can get to. Maybe we'll get out ahead of this hell and get to a place where they won't attack." He said, looking at the others. They all nodded except for Ivan.

"Fine. I'll come with you all, but only cause I saw what happened to Weston." Ivan said, standing up with the rest of his small group. Daniel opened back up his bag and handed out guns to the rest of us.

"Follow my lead." Daniel said, walking out of the office with his bags. The rest of us grabbed the rest of the bags and headed out after he did. The berserkers were hitting on the walls and growling. We stayed as far away from the walls as we could until we got near the door.

We paused a few feet away from the door for a few minutes. Daniel looked back at everyone and nodded at us all.

"Follow my lead, and lets hope we get there." Daniel said.

Trey nodded. "Lets get the hell outta here." He said. Daniel opened the door, and started firing his gun at something that the rest of us couldn't see yet. He walked forward and the rest of us followed his steps outside. A smaller berserker was laying on the ground, black nectar leaking out from it.

We walked around it, and everyone broke out into a run behind Daniel as we hurried down the street we walked up to the warehouse. More berserkers were behind us while we were running. Daniel stopped and turned around to let some more bullets fly out at the berserkers. The rest of us stopped too, just in time to see Jenna get ripped up into the air by a berserker.

As soon as her screaming stopped, we knew it was too late. Another berserker had been shot badly but they were all still up on their feet. We all started running as quick as we could down the road. As soon as the Army car that we had arrived in was in sight, everyone was flat out running toward it. None of us wanted to end up like Jenna, or Daniels other friend Weston.

Daniel got in the car and was starting it back up while the rest of us piled into the car. He stomped his foot down on the gas pedal as soon as the last door was closed. Ivan, Nick, and Trey were in the back of the car, while Matt was in the front. They were all holding their guns out, ready to shoot anything that got close to the car that was a threat to us all. I heard Trey, Ivan, and Nick's guns go off a few minutes after we had started down the road.

Quint and Tyler kept their guns held up from where they were sitting in case they were needed. Daniel's bag that held the rest of the guns was slowly passed back to Trey, Ivan, and Nick after a few minutes. I could hear them digging through the bag looking for any guns that could be more use than the guns they currently had in their hands. I heard Ivan laugh when he apparently found a gun he was satisfied with and began shooting it out of the back glass, which was now shattered on the floor of the car. Daniel sharply turned the car to the left and started heading down another alley.

There was flames and smoke in the distance to wherever we were heading. Only a couple of the berserkers were able to make it down the alley, but it was unfortunate that any were able to make it down this alley. Ivan, Nick, and Trey kept shooting their guns and after a few minutes, Quint and Tyler forced their way back into the back of the car with them, beginning to shoot at the berserkers. About half of their shots were actually hitting the berserkers, unfortunatly not enough to kill them, but hurting them all the same.

Daniel sent the car flying down into a parking structure and started going down to the basement of the levels of floors in the parking lot. I didn't know wat his plan was, but I didn't really like our chances of escape down on the bottom level. As soon as I was sure we were all dead, I saw an exit from the basement level back out on the other side of the building to a road. I assumed that Daniel had been in this parking structure a few times in order to know that it'd get us far enough away.

As soon as it seemed like the coast was clear, Tyler and Quint got back in the middle of the car and relaxed back against the seats. Trey, Ivan, and Nick relaxed in the back too, although they still had their guns ready, unlike Tyler and Quint.

"What state is this Prison even in?" Trey asked from the back of the truck.

"Georgia, why?" Daniel said, glancing back before looking back at the road.

"Get on the interstate and head towards Florida." Trey said, nodding. Daniel nodded and took the next exit we came across to the interstate. I didn't know what Trey's plans to take us back to Florida were, but I was glad that we were going back to where we had lived before being taken away to Furnace Prison.


	20. Chapter 20

We had been on the interstate for a few hours before we bothered stopping. We pulled over to the side of the road. Surprisingly there was a lot of cars this far down on the interstate, they were all heading north, away from the south. I didn't know if that meant that Furnace's freaks had been let loose all over the south, or what. But we at least knew we werent the only people still alive.

I was slightly scared to see what had become of Florida, if my family was still alive. I didn't even know if we'd be able to check to see if they were alive. We might just be going there to hide out, maybe catch a boat to Cuba or something. Get out of the country as quickly as possible or something. I didn't know what we had planned for when we got to Florida, only knew that we were still heading that way, and were getting ready close to where we were heading.

We had stopped to eat some food from our bags and take a break from the constant driving and being stuffed up in the Army car. I was starting to get worried that people could tell we weren't the Army and would call the cops or something, when Daniel noticed that we were getting low on gas for the car.

"We're going to need to pick up some gas somewhere, if the gas stations here are still open. Looks like somewhere has to be open for all of these people to be out." Daniel said, shrugging.

"Maybe the berserkers haven't gotten here yet." Matt said. Trey shook his head.

"I doubt they're going to take much longer, I mean look at all of these people getting the hell outta here. There has to have been some sort of warning for everyone to get out of the south and to the north. Maybe even have a few Army bases set up to take in people up there." Trey said, glancing back at the interstate. The north bound lanes were full of people zooming by, the south bound had just been us and a few other cars who went by at times.

After a few more minutes of walking around, we got back in the car and took off again. Daniel and Trey kept talking about where to stop for more gas, but slowly the conversation turned to if we needed to break into another store to steal more money and supplies. I tuned out that part of the conversation and went back to staring out the window of the car.

It was hard to think of what all had happened in the course of a day or two since we got out of Furnace. Furnace itself seemed like some sick, twisted dream that I had woken up from just to find myself in an Army car with some people, some of who I barely knew, others who were only here because of Furnace. I didn't know where most of these people would be at if Furnace hadn't exsisted.

Maybe I'd be on my way to another boring school day with Trey. Back at home with my nagging siblings, who seemed to disagree with anything I did. But that wasn't coming back, at least not easily, due to Furnace. They let me get locked up like I was some criminal who deserved whatever Furnace had to give me. And what Furnace had to give me was hell. Absolute hell. How many nights had I spent in Furnace being depressed? Thinking about jumping from one of the upper floors. Only to find myself finally hoping that there was a future outside of Furnace for myself, along with Trey, Matt, Quint, Tyler, Mohammad, John, Hayden, Alexander, and Stephan. Then to have that ripped away from me with one BloodWatch.

The other inmates from Furnace weren't really on the top of my list about where they were, but the thought occurred to me while the things around us got more and more familiar with every inch we drove into Florida, where had all of the other inmates gone? The ones who hadn't been twisted into a monster by Furnace and that hadn't died in a fight inside the Prison? Or by killing themselves, like Jayson had?

Jayson was just a kid, like Alexander and Stephan, and I practically killed him. Sure, it seemed like I had no other option if I wanted to save two out of the three that was hanging over the ledge at that point in time, but I could've dragged him back up, but that would've made Stephan and Alexander have to hang on longer to that floor. They might not have been able to hang on, but if they had been able to, I wouldn't of killed a kid. And the kid in that final test before I became a full Blacksuit.

They had only told me about Hayden's ending, what about the other inmates I'd known and then didn't see when we were escaping? Blacksuits, berserkers, rats, or dead? Was there any real difference? Either be working for Furnace, be a monster, be mindless, or be gone from the entire thing?

We got closer to where Trey and I use to live before Furnace as the hour passed, when we got close to the exit we needed to take from the interstate, Trey took over driving while Daniel took the passengers seat. I glanced over at Daniel's friends. They were sitting huddled in the floor with John, Alexander, and Stephan. Mohammad, Quint, and Tyler were in the back of the car now.

Something about the fact that other than Trey, Matt, Daniel, and I none of these people in this car had been really touched by Furnace or Warden Cross, felt weird to think about. When we were escaping from the prison, or that warehouse, it seemed like it was their war as much as it was our war, maybe it wasn't. What would have really happened if we left Ivan, Staci, Nick, and Hailey at that warehouse? Would Jenna still be alive? What if Mohammad, Tyler, Quint, John, Stephan, and Alexander had split off from us when we got out?

I knew that more than likely, at least the people from Furnace would want to stay with us, even if we had made it obvious that they could've left us at the beginning. Went back to their families, their lives before Furnace. Daniel's friends wanted to stay where they were for the most part, and we convinced them to go with us, and it got one of them killed already. If we had left them there, would the berserkers really have killed them if they saw the rest of us leave? I think they would have, but maybe we should have left them. It was their decision to stay there in the first place.

* * *

As soon as I saw which neighborhood we were driving into, I knew that we were going to see whether Trey and I's families believed we were innocent or guilty. We drove down the street where Trey's family lived. Trey's old house, was empty, but there was still a car in the driveway that obviously belonged to Trey's stepdad. Trey stood outside of the car for a few minutes looking at the house. I could tell he was debating whether or not to go inside of the house.

"Lets go ahead to your house, Seth." Trey said, getting back into the car slowly. "See if anyones over there before I break into my own family's house." He put the car back in drive and took off down the familiar street.

It only took a matter of minutes before we were sitting in front of the only house I'd lived in all of my life, unless you counted Furnace; which I didn't. I remembered the house exactly how it sat in front of us, yet it seemed like it'd been a lifetime since I was here last. I got out of the car and so did Trey. He knew my house as well as I knew his house. I didn't see any cars out front or lights on inside the house, but as we walked around the side of the house to the back yard I caught sight of a familiar truck that use to be my brothers, but the figure inside of it wasn't one of my brothers.

"Leah?" I asked as we got closer to the truck, looking at my sister inside of it.


	21. Chapter 21

Leah looked at Trey and I, and after a couple of seconds recognition set in on her face. "Seth, what the hell are you doing here?" She asked, getting out of the truck. She glared over at Trey after a minute. "And you, get the hell outta here."

Trey held up his hands. "Hey, I drove him here." He said, shrugging. "Not to mention kinda, oh you know, kept him alive and knowing who the hell he was while we were in there."

"Whatever, still doesn't do anything about the fact that you got him into that whole mess in the first place." Leah said, looking back at me and starting to act like Trey wasn't even there beside us. "So, how'd you get out?"

"That huge prison break. I helped with it. Though it was more of Trey, Matt, and Daniel's idea." I said, shrugging.

"Matt and Daniel? Other prisoners? Glad to see you again though, Seth. You want to come with me? I'm going to meet up with Jacob, Luca, Adam, mom, and dad." She said, looking at me.

Trey let out a breath. "I'm going to go back to the car, Seth. We'll wait around for as long as possible." He walked off back around the house and Leah waited until he was completely out of sight before looking back at me.

"So, what are you doing still with the other prisoners?" She asked.

I shrugged. "They're my friends, plus some of them are really cool. Like Matt." I explained, looking at the side of the house.

"They're prisoners, they probably did the crime they were committed of. Unlike you." She continued, shaking her head.

"Some did, some didn't. It's not my business. Furnace isn't like what it's said to be. There's these _things_ there. They operate on some people. It's not that great of a place. Plus, no way out." I said. "If I could have, don't you think I would've tried to communicate with you all? But I couldn't. Cause they know that we'd tell people about what goes on. Look, you've seen the news right? Those beasts on there is what Furnace creates. I knew a kid in there, Randy, he got changed into one."

Leah stayed quiet through my rant and shrugged at the end. "So, what? Are your little criminal friends going to turn themselves in to the cops after all of this? Tell them what Furnace did? I doubt it."

I sighed. "Look, just come meet everyone before you decide about anything. We've been driving here for most of the day. Plus, we need somewhere to stay for tonight, some real food, and everything." I said, shrugging and looking at the house. "Stay here with us if you want, or just let us inside and then leave. Whichever works for you is fine with me." I heard a car out front start up and after a couple seconds saw the car that everyone was piled into drive through the side yard and stop beside Leah and I.

Matt hurried to get outside of the car and everyone else piled out after him. "Look, Seth, we gotta get inside somewhere. There's literally no one left around here, that can't be good." He said, looking at us. I glanced out of the corner of my eye to see Leah glancing around at everyone in our group. Tyler walked forward but was pulled back toward the car by Quint.

"Fine, go on inside. I'll be in here in a few. One of you bring that car around to the garage, we can put it in there, and I'll fit in the truck in the building here." Leah said, shaking her head at me and tossing the keys to the door toward me. I caught them and smiled at her. She got back in the truck. Quint and Tyler started tossing bags out to everyone while Matt got back in the drivers seat. We all headed to the back door while Leah led Matt to the garage.

As soon as I stepped inside the house I regretted coming back to my family's house. I could've told Trey that we shouldn't come to my house, that we should just break into his, but no I put my family's lives in danger by coming here. And now Leah was helping us. I'd dragged her into this like Daniel's friends got dragged into it; this wasn't their war at all. Yet, they were with us for some reason. Everyone else stayed in the kitchen and living room, while I took off walking up the stairs and down the upstairs hallway. When I came to the door to the room that used to be my bedroom, I walked in. Everything was where I had left it on the day that I left the house when Trey and I were the suspects in a crime we didn't commit.

As soon as I heard the door downstairs open up while I was looking around, I left the room and hurried downstairs. I saw Leah standing in the kitchen looking at everyone.

"So, what sorta food have you all had since you got out of the prison, Seth?" She asked.

"Chips, crackers, and candy bars from vending machines." I said, shrugging. Leah laughed and shook her head and started pulling out frozen meals from the freezer.

"Hope whatever we have left here is fine with you all." She said. I shrugged.

After we'd all ate, it got quiet inside the house. "Shouldn't you call mom and dad to tell them you're not still on your way up there?" I asked Leah, raising an eyebrow.

She shook her head. "Can't. Phone service went down earlier today, so did the TV. Pretty much last thing on the TV was telling us to relocate to an Army base where they can protect us from those things." She explained, glancing at the TV on the wall. I nodded and looked at the floor.

* * *

Time passed by until everyone else was asleep in either one of the bedrooms, in the living room, or in the basement except for me and one of Daniels friends, Staci, I think. There wasn't any guards for the night, but I still wasn't asleep. Hadn't been since we were in the mall, what, two days ago now.

I glanced over at Staci. "So, why did you decide to come with the prisoners? Instead of staying in that warehouse." I asked, trying to start a conversation to break the utter silence that was throughout the rest of the house.

"That warehouse was going to be destroyed by whatever you called those things." She replied, turning to look at me.

"Berserkers," I muttered. "There was a couple of them down in the Solitary area of Furnace."

Staci nodded. "So, what were you in Furnace for anyway?"

Before I got the chance to answer Ivan walked into the room and started up his own conversation with Staci. I got up off of the couch I was sitting on and walked upstairs and into my bedroom.


	22. Chapter 22

As soon as my eyes closed when I got into my bedroom, I knew going to sleep was a mistake.

_I was back in the too familiar cell of Furnace Prison and there was a blacksuit and a wheezer standing right outside of the door. "You might have gotten out Seth Slade, but you'll rot in hell with the rest of the soldiers of Furnace. You're no different than the rest of them. Just because you remembered who you were before I made you better. That doesn't make you any better or different, in fact it makes you worse than the rest of them." A voice said, I glanced around the cell to find myself completely alone inside the steal bars. "It's too bad you just didn't forget who you were. I could've made you in charge of the rest of the soldier's of Furnace. You could've made them do whatever you wanted them too. Such a waste." The dream continued to taunt me with the words from the voice that sounded deep like the Warden's; but definitely wasn't the Warden's familiar voice._

* * *

When I woke up the next morning, everyone else was already awake and sitting around the living room. I knew something had happened by the looks on their faces. I sat down between Matt and Trey and looked around.

"Anyone going to let me in on whatever happened?" I asked, looking at Leah.

"Your friends from Furnace came by with a few members of the Army, asked if I'd seen any escaped inmates. Everyone else hid in the basement while I answered the door. So much help they were." Leah answered, rolling her eyes at Trey, who shrugged.

"Us former blacksuits would stick out, and if those guys were from the prison then they'd recognize the rest of us as escaped inmates." Trey replied, looking at the wall. I shook my head and looked around the room at everyone. Ivan was planted right between Hailey and Staci and was looking right at Matt, Trey, and I. Daniel, Nick, and Casey were near them. Tyler, Quint, John, Alexander, Stephan, and Mohammad were sitting on the floor next to each other.

I stood up and walked into the kitchen, grabbing an apple out of the fridge and headed down into the basement. I found the old library room quick enough and sat down in it. After a while, the door opened and closed again. I looked up to see Alexander standing in the room.

"So you use to live here?" He asked, glancing around. I nodded.

"Yeah, lived here for all of my life until I got sent to Furnace." I replied. "Where are you from?"

"California." He replied, sitting down. I nodded.

"So, why aren't you upstairs?" I asked, looking at him.

"Your sisters trying to convince us all to go to an Army base. Trey, Matt, and Daniel think its a horrible idea. Which it is, they'll just hand us all back over to Furnace." He replied. The door opened again and Staci walked into the doorway.

"Thought I heard you both, we're leaving here in a few. Not heading to an Army base yet, but Trey thinks we need to get on the road again. Told me to tell you to pack up whatever you want to." Staci said, looking at me. Alexander stood up and walked out of the door. I grabbed a couple books off of the shelf and went to leave the room but Staci stayed in the doorway.

"You never answered my question last night. Why were you in Furnace?" She asked, keeping her eyes on my face.

"They said that Trey and I killed one of our friends. We didn't do it though, not that that fact really matters. Kid ended up dead, we were the suspects, and we got caught. As far as his family and other people aorund here see it, justice was served." I said in a flat voice, shrugging at the end.

Staci nodded. "I guess I'll take your word for it that you all didn't really do it. Daniel explained what all those people from the Prison did, they blamed him for one of our friends murders too." She said. "Guess Ivan and Nick are lucky they didn't get blamed for the murder too, since they were with him. Cops thought they were covering up for their friend when they were asked questions about the murder."

I nodded. "Yeah, I guess they are." I said. "So, shouldn't we get going?" I gestured toward upstairs. Staci nodded and moved out of the way, I walked past her and up the stairs. I heard Staci walking up behind me. All of the bags were piled at the garage door when I got upstairs. Trey looked at me.

"You're riding in the Army vechicle again, Seth. Matt's riding with Leah in the truck, they'll lead the way. We're hoping to find a gas station that's open before we run out of gas. Cause not all of us are going to fit into that truck and I'm guessing I'm the first to be voted off of this field trip if it's up to your sister." Trey said, smirking at me. He picked up a bag and walked outside quickly when Leah walked back inside.

Leah tossed a bag at me and then grabbed one up herself. I followed her out back and to the truck where all of the bags were getting piled in. When the rest of the bags were brought outside and tossed into the back of the truck, we all stood around for a second. Daniel and Quint were grabbing a few guns for our car while Matt was picking himself out a couple of guns to take into the cab of the truck. I was surprised by the fact that Leah wasn't insisting that I go with her in the truck instead of Matt in case she decided that she didn't want to stay with the rest of our group from Furnace Prison.

I walked back to the car I was going to be traveling in and climbed in one of the middle row's seat's. Alexander, John, and Stephan were already sitting in the floor of the car. I guessed that Daniel's friends would be scattered around the car, while Tyler, Mohammad, and Quint would be in the back with guns waiting for any trouble they might see coming up behind us.

After a few minutes, the rest of the crowd that was riding in the car I was piled in. I was right about the three who were going to be in the back of the car, but Nick also squeezed in beside them. Staci and Ivan were in the same row of seats I was in while Casey and Hailey sat down beside John, Alexander, and Stephan. Trey and Daniel were in the drivers and passengers seats. The cars took off after a second and our trip was started. I looked out of the window back at my old house. I wasn't sure I was going to be going back there anytime soon, if ever.

After a while, we found a gas station that was owned by a couple guys that was still open, but the guy behind the counter said they were closing up tonight. We hurried to grab some snacks and get gas before leaving again. We were all in our own conversations with each other and it'd been a while since we'd seen any sign of potential danger that when the berserker crashed into the car sending it flying into a ditch, none of us were prepared to fight back.

* * *

As soon as my eyes opened, I knew I wasn't in the car anymore. My head was laying against wet grass, I lifted it up and glanced back towards the road. The car that I was in was now engulfed in flames. A trickle of blood was flowing down from a gash on my forehead. I looked around me but only saw Matt and Trey laying on the ground at different places on the side of the road. The truck that Matt and Leah had been in was crashed a little up ahead on the road from where the car I was in was hit at.

I heard the cars and the sounds of more berserkers within a few minutes. I tried getting up but failed to before a blacksuit was on top of me, holding me down. Four other blacksuits were tossing Trey and Matt into the back of a car. I didn't try to fight the blacksuit on me, it wasn't worth it. They had caught us.

I landed with a thud in the back of a different car from Trey and Matt, my head hitting a piece of metal in the wall while the rest of me landed on something that felt like people. The world went black as soon as the back doors of the car was closed, but I also couldn't keep my eyes open after the doors were shut.


	23. Chapter 23

The voice I was greeted with as soon as my eyelids opened seemed use to yelling out orders to others; and it wasn't that of the Warden or any blacksuit. My eyes focused after a second to see a man in an Army uniform standing in front of me. I was chained to a wall and my head felt like it weighed a ton. It took me a minute or two to actually focus in on what the man was saying enough to understand the words coming out of his mouth.

"I'm General Perkins. Maybe you'll be more useful than your friends were, Mr Slade. Your friends told me that they weren't working for Warden Cross, but I don't believe that." He said. "Of course I believe the kids who weren't some of the inmates we were looking for. Maybe you all kidnapped them? Their families reported them as missing, so I believe that you all did."

"We didn't and we aren't working for Cross." I managed to say. The man looked as if he believed that my statement was a complete lie and continued glaring at me.

"Oh really now?" The General replied, narrowing his eyes. "One of those kids you kidnapped is dead, Mr Slade. And honestly, I think we could place the blame on you and your friends for their murder too."

I shook my head. "We didn't kill anyone. Furnace and Cross did, and if anyones ended up dead its because of the berserker." I replied.

"You do realize that Alfred Furnace has been helping us completely ever since Warden Cross released you all to do as much damage as possible." General Perkins said, looking at me. "We're going to send you all to another hell much worse than just Prison that you were in. Maybe even seek the death penalty, kid. I suggest you start speaking or else we'll just put your name down on the list with your other friends who refused-"

The Generals speech was cut short by a metal door opening to reveal a woman. "General, one of the victims is awake now." She said. General Perkins glanced back at her before looking back at me.

"Give me just a second and page some of the guards to come and drag this one to a _better _interrogation room." He said, walking out of the room. A few minutes later three blacksuits walked into the room and yanked me off of the wall. They threw me into a metal wheelchair and tied down my arms and legs to the wheelchair. They shoved me through the infirmary and I got a glance at the people who they were accusing us of kidnapping now. I only saw three of them and one, I recognized as Casey, was currently being interrogated by General Perkins. The other two were still out of it.

The blacksuits pushed me down a hallway and into a room that was completely metal on the outside wall. When we got inside the room they locked me down onto a bed. And left the room, shutting the door and locking out any source of light possible in the room. I tried counting the minutes that passed by, but without any light or sound in the room, I lost count eventually and blocked out everything until I heard the door open. I glanced at the light in the doorway expecting to see the General or some other person with the Army, but instead I saw Ivan's face. He left the door open enough to where he'd be able to get back out.

"You jackass." He muttered, glaring down at me. "I haven't seen Nick or Staci since we got dragged away by those dudes. I saw them both while we were there before everything went black. They could be dead!"

"Ivan, you think I had any part in that?" I asked, looking at him.

Ivan nodded once, keeping his eyes on me. "Actually, yeah I do think that. Why else would Dan have came back? Other than to just kill the rest of us, cause we didn't keep him out of that place. He got Jenna and Weston killed already, and now Nick and Staci are gone. That leaves Hailey, Casey, and I."

"He didn't want to kill you all." I replied.

"Shut up!" He said loudly, glaring back at the door. "We should've stayed at the warehouse. We shouldn't have left there."

"Why are you even in here?" I asked, looking at him.

"If I find out they're dead, I swear I'll kill you. I dont care if Dan thinks you're a cool guy or something." He said, leaving and closing the door behind him.

* * *

I kept getting interrogated by General Perkins everyday, but I told him the same thing everytime he asked. We weren't kidnappers and we didn't work for Cross, and Alfred Furnace wasn't really helping them out to just be nice. But, the interrogations kept happening and there wasn't really anything I could do during the interrogations or during the hours of darkness that was in between the questions.

All I could do during those hours was sit there and hope that Nick, Staci, and the rest of the people I hadn't seen or heard about weren't dead. General Perkins would mention Trey every once in a while, so I knew he was alive. He mostly kept quiet about everyone else though during asking me stuff that I didn't know the answer to. Ivan hadn't shown back up in my holding room which was definitely a good thing.

Then eventually, the interrogations stopped. Some days they'd bring a tray of food, other days there'd be no food at all. I was glad for the days that there was food, but when there wasn't I didn't really care that much. The food here didn't taste like real food, though it was better than Furnace's food. I had gotten use to the Furnace Prison food. This food I doubted I'd get use to before they killed me cause I was with Furnace and wasn't answering any questions in their minds. I tried to keep track of when it was daytime and when it was nighttime based on when they brought me food. But usually when I'd have it figured out as best as I could, they'd stop bringing the food for a while; probably days.

I hadn't been fed yet for as far as I could tell the day went when the door opened up, but the faces I saw in the doorway weren't Soldiers. At least not the Army type. There was a couple people who Furnace had tried to make his Soldiers, but had failed to do so. Mixed in with those faces were some faces who obviously hadn't been in a Prison before.

Matt walked forward quickly unchaining me from the wall. "Hey Seth, nice to see you again." He said, grinning. I nodded and smiled as best as I could. "We gotta get out of here quick, come on." He walked back out of the door and I did the same; passing Daniel, Staci, Ivan, and John in the doorway. Ivan was glaring at me when I walked past him but I ignored the glare and kept walking.

They filled me in on what had happened as we walked. John, Daniel, Tyler, Staci, and Leah got away from the place before the blacksuits showed up to get us. They spent a while figuring up a plan and getting a car; which was easy to get another Army car due to Daniel. Tyler, Quint, Mohammad, Trey, Casey, Leah, Alexander, Stephan, and Hailey were suppose to be waiting in the car for us; but if we took too long, they were suppose to leave us behind and get away from here as quickly as possible.

We had gotten halfway down the hallway when we heard the growls coming from behind us. I turned around to see two berserkers taking up the entire hallway behind us. We started running quicker down the hallway; no longer caring if we were heard or not, cause apparently we'd been found already.

A Soldier stepped out of a room but instead of firing his gun at us like I expected him too, he started firing at the berserkers until a blacksuit stepped out of the room and shot him with a gun of his own. The blacksuits and berserkers who came from Furnace's own little freakshow house were here supposedly helping the Army.

_You should join them, Seth. Not the Army, but my Army. We're going to take over all of America, and then the rest of the World will fall to our feet too. No one will be able to stop us; not you, not any Army. Finally it will be One World United Under Alfred Furnace. No weak humans, no one to get in our way of doing what we want to. True freedom._

_"Not going to join you." _I thought back angrily at the thoughts that had intruded my head. They weren't my thoughts, definitely not. They were Alfred Furnace's. Someone who wanted to rule over the World and have them bow down to his feet. And I wasn't planning on falling for it.

_You'll die with them if you don't join us now! You're one of my children! Those friends of yours won't accept you! Not fully, at least. They'll always see you as a different type of person. One of the people who I changed into being a better person. They don't trust you. Didn't you see the way that girl looked at you when she asked what you did to end up in my Prison back at that house? She didn't trust you. Not one single bit. You don't have to take that anymore, not even if you join my forces._

"Shut up." I growled the words out loud before realizing it. Matt glanced back at me for a quick second before coming to a halt and grabbing Staci and Johns arms to stop them too as soon as the wall in front of us smashed in. A blacksuit came running in through the hole in the wall. He charged toward us, but Daniel pulled a gun out of his pocket and shot off a few quick shots taking care of him quickly before he could get anywhere near any of us. After a while longer of running, and ignoring the guns firing off behind us, we got outside. An Army car was sitting waiting for us to get into it. Once we had all piled in the car, it took off. Trey was in the drivers seat for now; but I figured Daniel would take over driving soon enough since he use to go joyriding in cars. I looked around the car but saw no sign of Nick. I leaned back in my seat between Staci and Matt.

I glanced out of the back window towards the Army base where I'd been trapped for God knows how long. One side of the building had flames coming out of it, and I could still hear the gunshots that was going off inside of the building. I couldn't tell which side was winning this fight, and I wasn't sure I wanted to know.


End file.
